Broken heart and broken self: mental illness and immigration in Rawi Hage's cockroach

Abstract EN

This article seeks to analyze Rawi Hage‘s novel cockroach (2008) by focusing on the intersections between trauma, mental illness, immigration and identity.

it traces the roots of the protagonist’s mental illness back to his childhood in his middle-Eastern war-torn country to demonstrate the lingering effects of the past over the present, manifested in his pathological defense mechanisms against the discrimination he faces as a dark-skinned poor immigrant.

it argues that his insanity, his schizophrenic splitting of the self and his violent acts are empowering and liberating means of displaying his defiance against a diseased multicultural policy, which raises important questions about the fixity of meaning, the rigidity of cultural boundaries and the self/other discourse that still characterize western thought.