In Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, individual trauma and collective trauma are inexorably connected due to military conflicts in the Sri Lankan Civil War. Remnants of wartime trauma haunt everyone and become something like an infectious national disease. Trauma creates ruptures in memory, which lead to dissociation and belated responses to the shocking experience. Trauma testimony is therefore a contradiction in terms, as the witness is silenced and there is nothing to tell from the traumatic void. However, this thesis argues that, in Anil's Ghost, Ondaatje suggests the possibility and necessity of bearing witness to trauma. "Witnessing" is often equated with "eye-witnessing," but in this novel, the symbol of eyes is ironically linked with blindness. Trauma victims are metaphorically blind because they are caught in the darkness of voicelessness, as is the case of Sailor. The novel highlights the viewpoint of Anil as an outsider in the beginning who gradually assumes the position of a witness where there is none. Most significantly, Anil commits herself to the responsibility after developing empathy with Ananda, Sailor, and other locals. Aside from Anil's testimony, the spirit of the dead lives on in another form as well: Ananda's artworks. Ananda works through his trauma while rebuilding Sailor's skull. In the end, by painting the eyes of Buddha statues, he turns Buddha into an all-seeing eyewitness of human suffering. The eye-paint ritual symbolizes the restoration of the Buddhist values of compassion, wisdom, and mercy, suggesting hope and healing after the devastation of the civil war.
目次
Introduction 1 Chapter I: “Death, Loss, Was Unfinished”: War Trauma in Anil’s Ghost 7 Chapter II: “To Give Him a Name Would Name the Rest”: The Distance of Witnessing and Its Consequences 36 Chapter III: “Secrets Turn Powerless in the Open Air”: Effects of Testimony on Trauma 58 Conclusion 82 Works Cited 85
