Helon Habila’s Travellers as a Narrative of Trauma

Abstract

The Study investigates Travellers using Laurie Vickroy’s multidisciplinary interpretative framework to show how readers can meditate on a variety of human responses to trauma. Previous studies about trauma have emphasised the collective description of the experiences of victims as related to a common adversity or condition. This study focuses on the individual responses of characters to the trauma of voluntary or involuntary immigration.  Engaging this framework, the experiences of major characters in Habila’s Travellers are explored. The unnamed narrator in Helon Habila’s Travellers occupies a vantage point which pulls the story together in unexpected ways, bringing the lives of different immigrants into view. This study employs a qualitative/descriptive method for the research. These migrants share the common experience of trauma as they grapple with the different conditions that plague them. This backdrop allows the reader to interrogate the physical, social and mental state of the characters. These characters include: the unnamed narrator, David/Moussa, Manu, Basma, Rachida and Omar, Karim Abdulbashir, and Juma.  The study concludes that emigration to the Global North constitutes a location for psychoanalytic studies based on individually diverse experiences and responses, which can include drifting, repeating patterns, pragmatizing, protecting, rebellion and self-harm.