Trauma

The focus in this study is laid upon the problems of the individual in the catastrophic 20th century which are actually the recurrent issues in Swift’s novels. As the author says, his major theme is to depict “a small man at big history”. Next to the experiences mainly during WW ІІ the author is further interested in family relations and conflicts, usually characterized by acts of subordination or passive submission. Usually Swift’s typical protagonists are vulnerable human beings in a state of crisis who are pressed by the urgent need to relate their own stories. Therefore, the author usually employs a first-person narration. Next to the social and ethical dimensions in Swift’s fiction his impressive artistic achievements are further studied. The author usually employs first-person narrations as the protagonists are pressed by the urge to tell their personal drama.

The article will attempt to explore George Saunders' novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” from a Lacanian perspective, focusing on the relationship between the voice, trauma, and the various forms (neologisms, euphemisms, and ellipses) under which the half-told [mi-dit] appears in the work of the American author. The article’s main goal will be to demonstrate that Saunders' book is constructed as a polyphonic (in the Bakhtinian sense) collage of voices, which continuously evoke the empty core of their subjectivity. As the novel occasionally blurs the boundary between fact and fiction, the text will also examine how Saunders treats history as a fictional (or phantasmic) field of disagreements, coordinated around the half-told truth of some (traumatic) event.