“I Just Stopped Being Able to Express the Want:” Trauma and Body Narratives in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

Abstract

The study aims to examine the function of the body in projecting trauma when language fails to express earlier traumatic events in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). Shedding light on the connection between corporeality and trauma, the study specifically examines how the traumas of Foer’s characters return through the cracks of their consciousness in a form of unconscious corporeal reactions, melancholia, fear and separation from the self or what psychologists call “the Double.” It also seeks to show how Foer’s characters heal from their earlier traumatic memories especially that language is inadequate in expressing traumatic experiences. In order to investigate both the role of corporeality in expressing the characters’ earlier traumatic events, and the possibility of healing from these psychic wounds, the study leans on a distillation of the most significant trauma theories including Sigmund Freud’s metaphoric focus on corporeality’s role in projecting trauma, and Cathy Caruth’s research on how trauma is expressed via corporeal manifestations. Through a textual analysis of Foer’s novel, the study shows that the characters’ corporeal unconscious manifestations of their anxiety, their physical and psychic wounds are a part of their healing process that takes place especially through writing, interacting and narrating their traumatic events.