![]() ![]() She thus calls for a remapping of ethics in what Annette Wieviorka has described as “the era of the witness. By crafting a narrative voice that is problematic, monologic, and ultimately appropriating, Mootoo illuminates weighty issues that strain the fabric of “trauma studies,” as well as social and political life more generally. The narrator’s piecing together of fragmented memories and utterances problematically integrates multiple accounts into a single overarching voice that equates traumatic experience with a repetition of victimization. 14 quotes from Cereus Blooms at Night: I wonder at how many of us, feeling unsafe and unprotected, either end up running far away from everything we kno. The author dismantles conventional image of ‘family’ and redefines the term. Here, perpetrators identify as victims, victims identify as perpetrators, and accountability becomes a blur. This paper is focused on the novel, ‘Cereus Blooms at Night’ in which Shani Mooto explores themes of utmost disgustincest, extra-marital affair, child abuse, sexual violence among others. Shani Mootoo’s novel Cereus Blooms at Night provides clear examples of the ethical problems formed between witness and victim within an overarching framework of victimization. Contributing to what Dominick LaCapra has identified as the institutionalization of trauma studies in the humanities, Margaret Atwood once identified survival, colonization, and hardship as the primary experiences of “Canadian-ness.” Many writers have since exposed fundamental flaws in this model. ![]()
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