Throughout the
Introduction, both Anderson and MacCurdy focus on one central idea: trauma is
something we all suffer from. They go on to explain that in order to heal from
traumatic events in our lives, we must find a way to explore and explain the
circumstances to ourselves. Hashing out these traumatic experiences in more
public settings is vital to a person’s healing process, but as Anderson and
MacCurdy explain, there is a large amount of marginalization and stigma that
surrounds this. Anderson and MacCurdy argue that trauma often separates
individuals from their community, making them feel like the “other” or no
longer “normal”. I believe Anderson and MacCurdy make it clear that the process
of healing can happen only when a person is able to express their trauma, free
of the fear of criticism and isolation.
Writing offers up one of the best platforms
for healing, allowing the writer to express their feelings to an unknown
audience that, for the moment, remains silent and always listening. Healing
continues when the piece of writing is read by someone else, someone who can
respond and help the writer work out their feelings and develop their thoughts
in order to truly understand their trauma. Anderson and MacCurdy use the term “re-externalization”
to explain that memories of traumatic events are strong and always present
because they are so hard to get over and an individual is only able to overcome
these memories when they are able to transmit their story. Therefore it is
impossible for a survivor to survive without telling their story. Anderson and
MacCurdy sum up the relationship between writing and healing by saying: “Through
the dual possibilities of permanence and revision, the chief healing effect of
writing is this to recover and to exert a measure of control over that which we
can never control—the past” (7).
What I found
interesting about this reading was the way Anderson and MacCurdy looked at
several different perspectives when talking about trauma. By seeing the
argument through the lens of the struggling soldier, the young child and the
alienated woman the pool of traumatic events and forms of healing also
expanded. I also found it interesting that with each of these perspectives, a
demand for new understanding emerged, creating change for medical treatment,
feminism, and simply the dynamics of a classroom. One quote that stood out to
me in the beginning of the reading talks about the marginalization that can
occur when writing is part of the classroom. Anderson and MacCurdy say “the
general inclination of our profession has long been to marginalize such
disturbing texts in favor of safer, more controlled discourses of the academy”
(2). As writers we are constantly told to write whatever we want and not care
whether that thing is offensive or unlikable, but for the most part I think a
lot of writers still take the audience’s opinion to heart. I’d like to talk
about this more with the of view, and how they have come to understand their relationship
to the audience.
