CHAPTER 2
 TRAUMA AND NARRATIVE: THE BROKEN CONNECTION OF THE SELF IN
 TONI MORRISON'S THE BLUESTEYE



We are all the time constructing narratives about our past and our future and .. the core
of our identity is really a narrative thread that gives meaning to our life, provided that
it is never broken.
 Donald P. Spence. "Narrative Persuasion"


The essence of psychological trauma is the loss of faith that there is order and continuity
in life. Trauma occurs when one loses the sense of having a safe place to retreat within or
outside oneself to deal with frightening emotions or experiences.

 Bessel A. van der Kolk. "The Separation
 Cry and the Trauma Response"


Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and
those who stand and struggle side by side, a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes
new life, and new growth possible. It is that act of speech, of "talking back" that is no
mere gesture of empty words, that is the expression of moving from object to subject, that
is the liberated voice.

 bell hooks. "Talking Back"

 "Insidious" Trauma: Suppressed Histories and the Foreclosed Self

 The generally accepted clinical definition of trauma pertains to experiences where

an individual witnesses or faces "an event or events that involved actual or threatened

death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others" and it

typically causes responses of "intense fear, helplessness, or horror."37 As Laplanche and

Pontalis point out, trauma is mainly characterized "by its intensity, by the subject's