سارا نازک دست

Autobiographies are not merely literary productions but mental functions, stories continuously narrated, owned and believed by the self. By broadening the locus of autobiography from literary productions to mental functions, the connection between its Greek constituent parts: autos (self), bios (life), and graphé (writing), can be clarified and new vantage points become possible for studying the self and its narrative framing. In the genre of autobiography Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory stands out in unraveling the ways in which memory speaks the self. The free indirect style voice of narration and bridging the epistemic gap between the past and the present, both innate to the act of remembering, are masterly used by Nabokov.  This article, following Mark Rowlands’ approach to memory, studies Speak, Memory in order to explore the narrative structure of autobiographical memory and the constitution of the autobiographical sense of self. Thisstudy argues that in Speak, Memory, the self emerges as a narrative thematic pattern across time by being purported in, and at the same time transcending clusters of first-personal narratives that reconstruct the past.

Trauma studies mainly focus on the psychological mechanisms of trauma and the various ways witnesses and victims represent it. But recent approaches in the field emphasize that despite doubts about the accuracy of traumatic memories, trauma narratives could point to the socio-political issues involved because they reflect the dominant societal discourses, and connect the text to history and ideology. As such, literary narratives can potentially depict traumatic events as non-political experiences, obscure their connections to power dynamics, and “depoliticize” these events. As a result, power structures are validated, and challenges to the root causes and consequences of trauma are prevented. To identify the patterns and possibilities of depoliticization in war narratives, this article examines four nationally acclaimed literary works about the Korean and Vietnam wars, written by American veterans. Employing a combination of theoretical frameworks from trauma studies alongside Norman Fairclough and Ruth Wodak’s models in critical discourse analysis, the research identified and categorized instances of depoliticization to show how they reflect or conceal broader historical and sociopolitical contexts. The results reveal that although these narratives appear to be anti-war, they conform to the dominant discourses of their time by downplaying, manipulating, or omitting political references—i.e., through depoliticization of the narrative. Given that depoliticized trauma narratives can diminish or obscure political responsibility, this study opens up extensive prospects for deeper examination of the relationship between the representation of trauma and political power. Ultimately, the findings emphasize the importance of a critical approach to analyzing trauma narratives and war literature.