Gestorwe geliefdes, die herkonstruksie van die selfnarratief in doodsbloei met verwysing na die rol van die mite van Orfeus en Euridike daarin

Abstract

Trauma shatters a person's existing self-narrative, especially trauma experienced after the loss of a loved one. "Turning one's life into a narrative is a vital way of finding meaning" (Van der Merwe & Gobodo-Madikizela, 2007:2); thus by writing a narrative after experiencing trauma using scriptotherapy, a form of narrative therapy, the author can strive to reconstruct his self-narrative. Scriptotherapy entails "the process of writing out and writing through traumatic experience in the mode of therapeutic reenactment" (Henke, 1998:xii). The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice - as the generic representation of a story of the loss of a loved one and its accompanying grief - can play a role in this reconstruction, whether it is done consciously or subconsciously. This myth serves as a framework of analogy, guiding the author in the process of reconstructing his self-narrative through the narrator, as is the case in Pieter Boskma's Doodsbloei (2010). This article aims to provide the reader with evidence from Doodsbloei that scriptotherapy serves a useful purpose in working through traumatic loss. However, it seems that the process of writing plays a bigger part in working through the traumatic loss of the narrator in Doodsbloei than the reconstruction of the self-narrative itself. In the end, only words prevail. Thus the narrator tries to save his loved one (and himself) through writing.