Order out of Chaos and Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin

Chaker، Abir; Nedjai,  Mohammed salah

Order out of Chaos and Trauma in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin

Date

2021

Authors

Chaker، Abir

Nedjai, Mohammed salah

Publisher

Université 20 Août 1955 - Skikda

Abstract

The attempt to come in terms with the tight relationship between order and chaos is the major concern of this research work. This research work compares between two literary works: Beloved by the Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison and Mornings in Jenin by the Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa. This comparison is based on three major theories: chaos theory, trauma fiction, and chaos psychology. The logical outcome of our argument is then to show how order emerges, dialectically speaking, out of chaos in both literary works. Chaos, as it is commonly understood, refers to utter disorder and confusion, but with chaos theory, a dialectics of order within disorder has been introduced. In the two literary works chaos is also caused by the highly traumatic and haunting past which results in highly devastating situations and psychological problems within mainly the main characters. The tight relationship between the past and the present created a climate of chaos and trauma in both novels and that can be even seen in the way the two novels are written. This last point is highly important because it helps us to draw the parallelism and similarities between the two novels based on chaos theory, trauma fiction, and chaos psychology. Through this comparison we found out how chaos first manifests itself within the main characters, we also found how this traumatic past affects the main characters, mothers, men and the whole Afro-American and Palestinian communities. We also found that this chaos is translated stylistically in both novels especially when we investigated chaos theory and trauma fiction since we found out that the chronological order is absent, the use of repetitions and affective images. Finally we found out how order comes out within the main characters and their respective communities through chaos theory and chaos psychology and mainly the concept of the Emergent Crisis that can be summarised in the fact that psychological troubles that are caused by the haunting and chaotic past are a source of positivity and creation and thus order.