Representing War Trauma in Magical Realist Cinema: Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (original) (raw)

2014, How Trauma Resonates: Art, Literature and Theoretical Practice

This eBook is an historical snapshot of the 3rd Annual 'Trauma Theory and Practice' conference, which was held at Hotel Real Palácio, Lisbon in March 2013. A group of academics and artists from disparate subject areas, including literature, film studies, philosophy, art history, sociology, media studies, and psychology, came together to discuss Trauma Theory and Practice in its many forms. What emerged was a lively and informed view of the different ways our history, personal experiences, education, and forms of entertainment are shaped by trauma and its resultant interpretations. Of the many themes emanating from the conference, literary representations of and responses to war-related trauma, was prevalent, and the part of this publication is dedicated to academic chapters relating to this area. Key scholars, including, Cathy Caruth, Theodor Adorno, Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud, play a notable role in several of these chapters, as do Dominic LaCapra and Ann E. Kaplan. The scholars support the research of academics writing on different aspects of trauma that still relate to the umbrella term of 'artistic representations of trauma', thus demonstrating the range of trauma theory and its connections too. Here, in Part I, Mark Callaghan's opening chapter explores the question of whether the Berlin Holocaust Memorial is more a reflection of Germany's vicarious trauma than a representation of genocide. Whilst Eugene L. Arva discusses the trauma of war by analysing the fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth. Following this, Jeremy Kasten continues to discuss trauma in relation to the Spanish Civil War, this time by looking at the representation of 'trauma space' in the film La caza, and completing our sub-theme of this Spanish conflict Alberto López Martín analyses the poetry of Antonio Gamoneda in relation to the fascist dictator, Francisco Franco. The representation of trauma through artistic media continues with Go Cheng Fai's account of Tan Twan Eng's novel The Gift of Rain, which precedes a further study of trauma studies through literature by way of Svetlana Antropova's examination of Samuel Beckett's Not I. Senka Suman continues the examination of trauma in literature by perusing Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's comparison of the world with the Odyssey and the human being with Odysseus. To complete this section of the publication, Zeineb Derbali focuses on a different aspect of trauma writing by way of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Fifth Book of Peace. Narrating the effects of trauma and post-colonialism represent the themes in Part II of this publication. Zainor Izat Zainal's chapter opens this section by articulating suffering and other traumatic legacies of colonialism. Post-colonialism is also a feature of Adel Sliti's chapter where the interchangeability of the terms 'vessels' and 'signs' is related to the transportation of slaves. Completing this section we have a further exploration of individual and national identity, this time