Article Title
Memory, Trauma, and the Body: An Analysis of The Children of Air India: un/authorized exhibits and interjections
Abstract
This article explores Renée Sarojini Saklikar’s poem “Mother and Daughter” from her collection of elegiac poems The Children of Air India: un/authorized exhibits and interjections. In this essay, the poem is interpreted in three distinct perspectives in line with each author’s respective academic background. The poem is analyzed in relation to theories of psychic trauma in literature, representations of female sexuality and male violence, as well as the historical remembering/forgetting of the event. While the 1985 Air India attack is Canada’s largest mass murder in history, Canadians largely fail to recognize the attack as a “Canadian tragedy.” However, we argue that through literature, Canadians can empathize with one another and see past the lines of ethnicity and/or cultural backgrounds that prevented us from doing so in the first place.
MEGAN HERTNER is a fourth year student at Huron University College completing an Honours Double Major in English Language and Literature and History. In September 2016, she will begin studying law at the University of Ottawa.
KAL HUBERT is studying English Language and Literature at Huron University College and Sexuality Studies at Western University.
EMILY PUNNETT is completing a major in English Language and Literature and a minor in Women’s Studies at Huron University College and will be earning her bachelor’s degree in spring 2016.
Recommended Citation
Hertner, Megan; Punnett, Emily; and Hubert, Kal
(2016)
"Memory, Trauma, and the Body: An Analysis of The Children of Air India: un/authorized exhibits and interjections,"
Liberated Arts: a journal for undergraduate research: Vol. 2:
Iss.
1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/lajur/vol2/iss1/3