TRAUMA UNSPEAKABLE: WOMEN OF OWU AND THE ECHOES OF A TIMELESS LAMENT

Abstract

Many of the oldest and most lasting forms of literature in human history have been laments. Laments are present both in the Iliad and the Odyssey and have continued to be used in elegized poems and dramas. This paper seeks to place lament in the context of modern dramas as they construct core theoretical issues in history and sociology of literature, therefore articulating the composite nature of the tragic genre in drama. Women of Owu, the specimen text, is used to explore the genre of lament as a form of address that channels emotion through ritual. Using the framework of the Aristotelian conception of tragedy, the paper explores Women of Owu as a trauma play of lamentation which depicts both a moment and a language. The concept of a moment and a language is used to portray how past and present overlap and swirl around each other in dramatic narration, making the play derive its aesthetic completeness in psychosocial interpretation. It is argued that the play has a low dramatic action in its construction and is imbued with thematic overstatements, thus, relying heavily on lament as symbol rather than on action.