INHERITED TRAUMA AND ENSLAVEMENT: A PSYCHOANALYTIC EXPLORATION OF MOTHERHOOD IN RIVER SING ME HOME (2023)

Abstract

The trauma of living in bondage lingers more than in one nuclear family and spreads across generations. The inherited trauma of enslavement moves through the lineage of blacks. The descendants of blacks are subject to maternal wounds of child loss, forced physical exertion, and forced relocation that Rachel and other individuals of the black community endured through slavery. The major afflicted individuals of trauma of slavery are the mothering figures of the African bloodline. The offspring of the captives take on the psychological trauma through their lived realities and from their forefathers, which this research examines in Shearer’s novel River Sing Me Home. The text is analyzed through Cathy Caruth’s Trauma Theory, which scrutinizes the characters in subjugation of whites and studies the eternal ancestry trauma of slavery.