Savrina Chinien (Michel de Montaigne, Bordeuax University)
Martinican writers Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant define Martinican “créolité” as being more audacious in its concepts and more anchored in the West Indian francophone reality than Aimé Césaire’s “négritude” and Edouard Glissant’s “antillanité”. Both Chamoiseau and Confiant want to defend and illustrate the creole culture, as well as depict the historical, anthropological and sociological aspects of the West Indies. While so doing, the recurrent thematics which transpire from most of their works are “memory and trauma”.
Both these authors constantly refer to what they term as “the first trauma” (“le trauma premier”), that is the capture and uprooting of so many Africans – who were to become slaves – from their native homeland to the Caribbean region (and the American continent). Their works also explore the consequences of what they consider as a major trauma: the law of departmentalisation of 1946.
The collective historic memory of these traumas is significantly represented in their novels and essays. Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant emphasize upon the memory/memories of the people from the lower social classes who, according to them, constitute a salient aspect of Martinican history.
For these two authors, this history (written with a small ‘h’) of people from the lower social strata is contrasted with Occidental institutional History (with a capital ‘H’). They give more importance to the ‘trivial’ life, the history/story of these people which has helped to build up History. This paper will analyse the depiction of memory and trauma in the works of Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphaël Confiant and explore the reasons, consequences and eventuality of transcending these notions. Some of the films of Martinican filmmaker Guy Deslauriers, the scripts of which have been written by Patrick Chamoiseau, will also be examined.
