Index # 08768
Women –especially mothers– have long been associated with the household and held accountable for its stability by maintaining traditions and performing parenthood. Many literary works narrate the necessary departure of a husband, a son or a daughter –a departure that possibly leads to no return. Presumably dead or prevented from ever coming back home (because of poverty, war, etc.), the separation with the beloved family member triggers feelings of loss, abandonment and nostalgia. Those who leave and those who stay endure all the ordeals and the challenges implied by such departures, from grief and mourning to attempts at living a new life. But what happens if the beloved –often presumably dead– reappears and intends to resume his/her life? If departure affects identity, what can be said after such a long absence? Returning to the same place is not the same than traveling back in time: leaving can damage the family bond, which makes barely impossible the confession of the most intimate secrets (pain, disease, murder). How did people and feelings evolve? Is it possible to resume the relationship to where it stopped or is something really changed forever? Coming back home may be an achievable goal, but there is no possible return into the past. Ulysses’ journey and the prodigal son in the Bible symbolize the difficult return. As a recurrent motive throughout literature of all countries and faith, it communicates something very deep about relationships, continuity and freedom. It also teaches us how to live with ghosts, whether ghosts are allegorical (people who are not dead but absent and haunt us) or literal (the deceased that inhabit our mind). In this class, we will study the motive of the difficult return through the eyes of abandoned women (spouses, mothers) and their husband and children. Using novels, plays, movies but also juridical archives and historic documents – to highlight identity theft, we will explore fundamental texts of our civilization (The Bible, The Odyssey by Homer, Phaedra by Racine), major French works that question returns and departures though authentic testimonies (The Return of Martin Guerre, Only the End of the World) and we will finally read a recent bestselling novel that proves that difficult returns are still a crucial problem in our civilization, as Adichie’s modern exploration of the United States conveys through a Nigerian point of view.
About Professor Tamas
[instructor bio]