Speaking the Unspeakable

【Abstract】Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a book written by Jonathan Safran Foer and it is also a representative work in 9/11 fictions. This novel shows a kind of paradox of trauma narrative. In this paper， the author tries to find the conflict in trauma narrative.

【Key Words】speaking； unspeakable； paradox

【中图分类号】I207.42 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】2095-3089（2016）19-0005-01

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. This whole story is narrated in a very different way. There are many pictures， letters and blank space， the author uses a very special technique to show the trauma of an ordinary family in America.

The book？蒺s narrator is a nine？鄄year？鄄old boy named Oskar Schell. Like other children in America， Oskar lived in a peaceful and innocent life with his father， mother and grandmother. He liked to listen to the stories told by his father and loved asking questions. He went to school on time and had many hobbies. But happiness was ended after his fathers death.

“Unspeakable” can be seen from the unspeakable traumatic experiences of the three characters in this novel. Oskar Schell is a 9？鄄year？鄄old boy who lost his father in “the worst day”. He was struggling to evade or confront his fathers death. He felt guilt for a failure of answering his fathers last phone call. He was trouble with sleeping， he was self？鄄torture and self？鄄blaming by giving himself bruises. He was suffering from hyperarousal and unable to relax. He was afraid of taking the subway， the ferry， stayed away from people with mustaches or turbans. His heart was full of pains because he missed his father very much， but he didnt tell anybody what he was thinking， he just avoided his trauma. Oskars grandmother was a woman who lost her families in Dresden bombing and had a failure in marriage. She was burdened with survivor guilt and low self？鄄esteem and she became a prisoner of the past. By the suggestion of her husband， she once tried to write her traumatic experience， but there were all blank pages because she forgot to install colored tape. This is a kind of intransitive writing. We have no idea about her traumatic past. Oskars grandfather was another victim of Dresden bombing. After loosing his wife， Anna and their unborn child， he suffered from aphasia， he had no sense of time， he couldnt forget the traumatic past， and then his lost his only son in 9·11 attacks. This is also a kind of intransitive writing. Nobody knows what he said in the letters.

“Speaking” means to speak out the trauma. During Oskars process of finding the key， he knew the stories of other people， he had a fresh new idea toward life. At last， he told everything to his grandfather and Mr. Black， and began the way of healing trauma. Though we cannot see what Oskars grandmother wrote on the paper and cannot know what the letters were about， this kind of intransitive writing wasnt meaningless， it was also a kind of self？鄄pouring. It did have meaning to them.

After a person has traumatic experience， he or she will keep the traumatic memory to avoid trauma. But when they cant hold the pain any more， they will have a kind of feeling， they hope that someone can listen to our stories and share the pains. In the other hand， they try to turn their trauma into narrative， so this is a conflict between “speaking” and “unspeakable”， thats the paradox of trauma narrative.

Reference：

[1]王建会.“难以言说”与“不得不说”的悖论——《特别响，非常近》的创伤叙事分析.外国文学.2013（9）.

[2]丁夏林.以历史的长镜头思考——《特别响，非常近》与“9·11”叙事.外国文学评论. 2012（3）.

作者简介：

黄婷婷（1991-），女，辽宁昌图人，现为沈阳师范大学在读研究生，研究方向为英语语言文学。