A lattice of pain and technique : narrative, trauma, and mētis in Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco.

Abstract

This thesis studies Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel Texaco utilizing narratological tools to analyze how it explores the topics of trauma and practical knowledge through the concept of storytelling. Utilizing Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,” I show how Texaco champions the power of storytelling and the figure of the storyteller as a vector through which experiences are transmitted, mainly knowledge and trauma. To explain these types of experiences, I rely on the concept of mētis as expressed in James C. Scott’s book Seeing Like A State and the theories on trauma that Dori Laub, Shoshana Felman, and Cathy Caruth study. This thesis ends for a call to adapt and apply this frame further in other works of literature.