Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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About Me
- Monica
- I am a writer, storyteller, and former professor (UCLA, Pepperdine, LMU, Purdue) with expertise in representations of trauma, multi-ethnic literatures, Christianity and Judaism, immigrant narratives, and Critical Theory (I'm a graduate of the Cornell School of Criticism and Theory). I love to create stories. I adore books, wine, traveling, and shoes. I wrote a book called THE MIDRASHIC IMPULSE AND THE CONTEMPORARY LITERARY RESPONSE TO TRAUMA and have published pieces in Newsweek, The New Republic, The Jewish Journal, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Forward, and other places.
In the beginning of chapter 17, Zits claims that he has "lost time," and that "losing time" is "all [he] know[s] how to do now" (140). Why is he lost in time? What can his sense of time imply about the persistent influences of trauma?
ReplyDeleteZits being lost in time represents his inability to cope with the trauma that he has endured. He is lost in time because he needs to realize what it means to come to terms with what has occurred, and move forward. At the point where he begins to travel through time he has a decision to make concerning whether or not he will take human life more for sport than for anything else. Instead of being a result of trauma, he would become the cause. Thus, the his being lost in time is a way for him to realize the consequences of his actions and to realize his full potential.
ReplyDeleteIn another line of thought, his loss of sense of time can be indicative of a response to trauma. Those involve often separate themselves from what is going on around them in order to give themselves an advantage when the trauma has occurred. Zits cannot fully relate to any of the people he inhabits because he lacks the prior knowledge and thought to make a complete connection. His loss of time represents the trauma of his situation and what he is experiencing.
I think the loss of time represents that "working through" concept we've been talking about in class. He boasts on p. 12 about his vast knowledge about Native Americans but all the information came to him from a TV box. He's missing the most important component and that's EXPERIENCE. So, because it's impossible for him to really travel through time to join his ancestors, all of this "flight" through history is his own mental and emotional reactions of "working through" the different tragedies in his life to come out a healthier, happier human being.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite a therapeutic luxury to be granted this one long moment to dream while working through all of your trauma.And afterward, he receives the best possible remedy for his life and that's identity. He doesn't have to be Zits with all of his anguish raising to the surface, he is Michael now and he's a brighter person inside and out.