Trauma narrative and counter-story telling in sapphire's push : from a story of healing into a story of resistance

Abstract EN

The paper makes the novel Push by Afro-American novelist Sapphire its area of study where it focuses on the issue of trauma narrative and counter-storytelling.

It investigates the physical and sexual abuse undergone by the black teenager, Precious, and her attempt to overcome the trauma resulted from her abuse by concentrating her efforts on learning reading and writing with the help of her new teacher in her alternative school after her dismissal from school because of her pregnancy.

Through narrating\writing her personal story, Precious becomes able to overcome her hardships.

Precious does not only succeed to heal her traumatic wounds, but she also turns her story of trauma into a counter story of resistance that makes her connected with her ancestors who , like her, have suffered and resisted .

In its theoretical approach, the research adopts the theory of trauma narrative and the tenet of counter-storytelling which is one of the tenets of critical race theory