Writing the Unspeakable: Language, Memory and Trauma In Survival in Auschwitz, Still Alive and Nightfather Público

Abstract

Abstract

A theme of "incomprehensibility" pervades discourse surrounding the Holocaust. Despite
the notion that the attempt to annihilate European Jewry has been deemed "unspeakable,"
many survivors have written accounts of the events they witnessed. This thesis explores
the problems of language in relation to the Holocaust through the analysis of two
memoirs by Holocaust survivors and one "post-memoir" by the daughter of a survivor:
Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, Ruth Kluger's Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood
Remembered, and Carl Friedman's Nightfather. I analyze the ways in which each writer
overcomes the problems of inexpressibility in order to tell his or her story.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents


First Words .................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Primo Levi: Writing As Survival.......................................................... 7
Chapter 2: Ruth Kluger: Trauma and Witnessing ................................................. 23
Chapter 3: Carl Friedman: The Power of Postmemory........................................... 40
Last Words..................................................................................................... 58
Works Cited ....................................................................................................61

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Comparative Literature
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Literature, Comparative Language, General
Palabra Clave	language literature trauma memoir Holocaust
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Bammer, Angelika, Emory University
Committee Members	Robbins, Jill, Emory University Wade, Melissa M, Emory University

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