"Literature of Atrocities": The Armenian Genocide

A. Overview: The Hunger, Nobody's Child, Daughter of War	B. Narratorial Mode of the Trilogy	C. The Series and Plot
D. The Hunger and Trauma	E. Nobody's Child and the Ambivalence of Hope	F. Daughter of War and the Wider Context of Atrocity

A. Overview of Novels


The Hunger:  A realistic, modern day novel about fifteen-year-old Paula's struggle with an eating disorder fractured by a fantasy element of time travel and  a historical fiction plot set during the 1915, deportation and genocide of Armenians including Paula's great-grandmother by the Young Turks. Paula's pursuit of perfectionism in all facts of her life cause her take drastic measure to get her tall, average frame into the 110 pound physique of models like Kate Moss. Caught up in the "power" of thin, she reaches a "skeletal" frame, which she hides until a savvy doctor uncovers the disorder hiding beneath the baggy clothes. During treatment, Paula falls into a coma and is somehow transported to the 1915 Armenian deportations that she had been researching for school and her Gramma, taking up the "body" of Marta, her great grandmother as she . Marta posed as a boy to join Kevork, her betrothed during the deportation but was later discovered but was able to run away. Marta was "saved" by Adila who was another Armenia posing as a Turk. Marta became part of a harem until the first wife had her

Nobody's Child:   Divided in to two books --  Book I, the 1909 Adana Massacre and  Book II, 1915, deportation and genocide of Armenians -- this historical fiction novel follows Mariam (10) and her siblings Marta (7) and Onnig (4) as they survive the Adana massacre and join two other survivors, Kevork (7) and his aunt, Anna. They find work and later a new life as orphans in a German Missionary Orphanage. Six years later, the Armenia  deportations by the YoungTurks separate the new "family." This novel follows Mariam as she is sold  on the slave market as a concubine and Kevork as he is saved by an Arab nomadic group. Both Mariam, Marta's sister, and Kevork, Marta's betrothed must hide their culture to survive and find their way back to Marta.


 Daughter of War: A historical fiction novel set between 1916-1918 in Turkey. This novel explores how Armenians escaped deportation and lived disguised and in constant fear of being discovered by the Turks. This novel follow's Kevork's journey as a courier for American missionaries as he searches for his betrothed, Marta. Meanwhile, Marta is living in the orphanage, pregnant with Paula's grandmother from The Hunger teaching and taking care of the children the American missionaries smuggled in -- other children, "urchins," prevented from services by Turk soldiers. Mariam, Marta's sister, was in a harem as well and was later brought to the orphanage after the first wife of the house had other Armenian "slaves" in her household killed.


  B. Narratorial Mode of the Trilogy

All three  novels are written in third person omniscient, which is different than many children's literature of atrocity; this narrative mode distances the narratorial voice from the plot, which may serve to distance the reader from the trauma of the atrocity. While Jordan (see Never Fall Down) suggests a first person narrator is an important authorial strategy that personalizes the plot for the reader, Skrypuch has chosen third person. What does this narrative mode offer? This mode may "protect" the young reader, but it also provides access to different points of view and experiences in a narratorial voice that can provide historical context and insight that the child protagonist cannot. Sullivan might say that the text can do more instructing, but Langer would say that the text can provide a framework for responding with this added contextual element. Because the three books work together to fill in narrative gaps of each installment, the third person narrator also offers some comfort for the reader -- the reliability of an omniscient narrator can confront the reader with questions while also comforting him or her with answers and explanations.The parallel stories present the reader with multiple imaginative accounts of Armenian victims and survivors along with Turks and Arabs who hid Armenians but also Turk soldiers (both trained and untrained inmates from the prisons) as well as German and American missionaries. What can first person do? Third person? Which is better for children? Which is better for history? Which is better for art/literature?

C. The Series and Plot

Skrypuch initially wrote The Hunger as a stand-alone that included much of the three novels which, during revisions, became a "single story." However, Skrypuch says, "As it happened, Marta, Kevork, and Mariam would not let me go" (personal email), and so Nobody's Child became her break out book. She says that no other Dundurn novel had ever sold more copies, and this novel was nominated for awards prompting an increase from 12 to 160 presentations by the author that year. Because more research was available on the Armenian genocide  (Shoshana in Testimony says that history is a never ending story), Skrypuch had material from scholars and genocide descendents to help her craft subsequent novels about the atrocities.  As readers will note when reading the three novels, there are a few discrepancies because The Hunger was initially a stand-alone novel. Paula's grandmother, Pauline,  tells Paula that Mariam was her mother and that she was born in a harem. (The Hunger 183). Skrypuch admits that she "couldn't quite fit Daughter of War  to match The Hunger" but she did not want to "deny the characters the growth they had between the three novels" (email) and she thought that the theme of truth and memory in recounting a story offered her some space to shift or clarify details in the other novel. She says, "People can recount family events but over the years recounting takes on a storytelling quality. In the case of what Marta is willing to tell her daughter, the continued rapes in a Turkish home transforms itself into being born in a harem -- a less brutal explanation of an illegitimate daughter's origin" (email). Pauline, the Americanized Parantzim,  is not only the name of Marta's daughter (conceived in a harem and born in the orphanage in Daughter of War) but Mariam's adoptive daughter (who loves all things Turkish because she was partially raised in a harem in Daughter of War). This is the name of Marta and Mariam's mother, as well; therefore, the deliberate and unintentional gaps inherent in narrative work in these three novels to tell the story of the beginning, middle, and never-ending story of the Armenian genocide.


D. The Hunger  and Trauma
 
Kenneth Kidd, in his article "'A' is for Auschwitz: Psychoanalysis, Trauma, Theory, and 'The Children's Literature of Atrocities,'' argues that psychoanalysis and children's literature are mutually enabling. He sees the two discourses as enmeshed as one discourse is used to discover in the other analogous truths.  Kidd asks Why not use narrative as a sort of therapy? and even goes so far as to ask if it might be time to leave psychoanalysis behind. Kidd discusses The Hunger in his article as a story of personal trauma and historical trauma -- separate subjects, separate traumas; however, Skrypuch creates an element of  "split subjectivity" when Paula, the protagonist, falls into a coma as the result of severe anorexia and takes up the persona of her grandmother's aunt, Marta, in 1915 Turkey during the deportation of Armenians into the desert. Published in 1999, The Hunger, was a consciousness raising novel about the Turkish massacre of Armenians, that, at the time, was not discussed nor acknowledged as a genocide. Kidd's criticism of this novel is that its historicity seems presentist," a mode of literary or historical analysis in which present-day ideas and perspectives are anachronistically introduced into depictions or interpretations of the past." The danger of presentism is that it creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter, and so it suggests that history is open to invention. Because Paula experience a sort of time travel or altered states in order to render an account of the deportation, Paula's consciousness must invent the story from the little research she did about the Armenian genocide for her school project and then take up the first person experience of  Marta's escape from deportation and years living in a harem, raped nightly by her "husband" (though not depicted) and enslaved by the first wife.

Kidd does suggest that children's literature must resist simple story telling and the absolutism of evil and innocence by offering a nuanced history with complexity and collectivity, rather than heroic individualism. The argument is for children's literature to be trauma testimony that while imperfect can reckon with the difficulty of memory and narrative. What is problematic with The Hunger is that Paula does not have the memory, and the strategy for giving her that memory is simplistic and makes anorexia (which begins with personal agency for the victim) analogous to genocide (that which is perpetrated).  In the following passage, Paula is coming out of her coma, and the split subject of  Marta/Paula unifies:

There stood an emaciated woman[Paula] wrapped in a stiff white sheet. Marta's throat filled with tears when she regarded the woman's hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. This woman had suffered through famine and ravages too.  Marta reached out to touch the woman's hand -- to give comfort. Then she noticed the scars on the knuckles and the needle marks on her arm. With a start, she understood that this was Paula. Marta's heart was filled with sorrow...And then Marta no longer existed.  She had stepped inside Paula. (The Hunger 157)

What Marta sees in the future is an image of emaciation, but the scarred knuckles indicate the self-inflicted trauma of starvation, something beyond Marta's imagination but not the author's and, now, not the child reader's consciousness. What does this split subjectivity do for the child reader, then? As a testimony to the personal trauma of anorexia, The Hunger  works; literature is a mode of "truth's realization beyond what is available as statement, beyond what is known" (Kidd). The historical trauma, however,  is insufficient here because it is detached from the personal trauma of the protagonist Paula). The historical trauma does, however,  develop profoundly in the acclaimed Nobody's Child and Daughter of War because the novels render personal and historical trauma -- not split but enmeshed, complex, and ambiguous narratives that explore the multiple perspectives in the same historical context.

E. Nobody's Daughter and the Ambivalence of Hope
 
While the book jacket of Nobody's Daughter  states, "One thing sustains them throughout their horrifying ordeals -- the hope that they might one day be reunited," and Jordan would suggest that hope is an important theme in children's literature of  atrocities, Kidd seems to suggest that hope is may be foolish or even unethical if such literature intends to reckon with the horrific world violence (and in many cases violence to which America contributes). And I think that Skrypuch's treatment of hope is tempered. The novel is more of a meditation on violence, a sharing of collective memories, and an exploration of the ambivalence of hope. After Mariam was sold in an auction to a Turk, Rustem Bey, whom had fallen in love with her when he delivered food the the orphanage between 1909 (after the Adana massacre) and 1915 (just before the deportations), Mariam discovers that racism knows no class. A wealthy Armenian girl, Ani, was also bought by Rustem, and she stood watch over Mariam as she was cleaned by the new harem:

The image brought a sad smile to Mariam's lips. Ani, a twelve-year-old girl from a pampered and wealthy home, had acted as a bath attendant to Mariam -- a homeless orphan. A gasp of sadness filled her throat when the realization came: now Ani was the same as she. A homeless orphan. Yet she was nobody's child. She was in control. Mariam vowed to follow Ani's lead and become stronger and in control of herself. (175)

Here we see a few things happening. First, this authorial strategy to "teach" about the class differences of Armenians helps the reader recognize the heterogeneity of a culture, and second, we see how attractive women were able to survive the genocide: by being sold into slavery and a life as a Turkish concubine. Mariam would now have to become that which she resisted at several turns in the novel. After the Adana massacre and Mariam's parents were killed, Mariam, Marta, Onnig, Kevork, and Anna found work and shelter with a Turk landowner agree to help him harvest his wheat -- wheat fields across the area were turning to seed without Armenian peasants to work the land. During this time the land owner, Abdul Hassan, offered to adopt them: "Even though she would still be with her brother and sister, and even though they would be fed and clothed, and perhaps even loved, she did not want to grow up as a Turk" (43). Mariam goes so far to say that she would rather die as an Armenian than live as a Turk. Throughout this novel, the characters experience the ambiguity of family and the ambivalence of identity. Are we our culture? Is our identity definable by blood or custom? And later, as Kevork is wandering the Syrian desert after deportation, he is "reborn" (218) with the help of an Arab woman and invited to become the son of the patriarch of the Arab camp, Ibrahim. He is given an Arab name, but to be fully accepted, he would have to become Muslim, and that "was something he would never do. In addition to the religious ceremony, there was a physical requirement for all Muslim men: circumcision. It was the one physical difference between Christians and Muslims" (232). Skrypuch does not make this decision so simply for Kevork. Kevork did not want to hurt Ibrahim who had been so kind to him, and he recognized that as an orphan he had a new father and mother. As for family, we see that family is defined not by birth but by love and that identity is not fixed by birth but rather a social construction.

F. Daughter of War and the Wider Context of Atrocity

Elizabeth Baer would be please do find the map of Turkey at the beginning of this novel. She suggests in the second of her four suggested elements of children's literature that novels need to have the proper context of complexity and recommends providing a wider context by adding maps, a glossary, and providing some sort of chronology of events. Indeed, Skrypuch obliged, and you will see the helpful map with the routes of several characters carefully mapped along with the various concentration camps.  Skrypuch even begins with an  "Historical Note"; while readers hear about the "compassionate" Muslim families and nomadic Arabs who rescued Armenians, she also notes how many younger women survived as slaves and concubines in Muslim homes. Baer comments that children's literature should avoid emphasis on rescuers, and again Skrypuch seems to be responding to this element by recounting the lives of Marta, raped by her "husband" and later giving birth to their child, and Mariam who was forced to escape the harem because the first wife had several adoptive Armenian children killed.  Although Mariam and Marta were living as Turks and Kevork was living as an Arab, they were not safe. The Turks knew about this trend during the deportations and were on the lookout for disguises. The novel explores what is might have been like to live with this uncertainty of discovery and ambivalence of identity.


Because Marta became pregnant and might give birth to a son, making her first wife, the first wife of the harem, Idris, wanted Marta out of their house, so Idris brought Marda back to the orphanage in a cart. Idris could not reveal Marta as an Armenian to the authorities, or Idris would be persecuted. However, Skrypuch crafts an imaginative truth in this passage as Idris helps Marta off the back of the cart. "Marta was struck by her [Idris] demeanor..., but there was not need for duplicity here. Did this mean that Idris was actually starting to miss her? More than likely, it was all the housecleaning Idris would miss. No, Marta thought again, that was being unfair.  Idris did not have to go through so much trouble to get rid of her. Marta owed this woman her life" (28). In this short passage, child readers will not see an overly optimistic view of human nature but rather a framework for response and a sense of consideration for multiple points of view.

What this third novel also does well, and this speaks to providing a wider context, is including the German and American contributions. Skrypuch tells her readers that the story is based on firsthand accounts of the Armenian genocide but that the characters are fictionalized with the exception of one: Leslie A. Davis, an American consul. He published his observations in the The Slaughterhouse Province: an American Diplomat's report on the Armenian Genocide: 1915-1917 (1989).  Child readers get a glimpse of the international context and international response in this novel, that I think is really important to understanding that Turkey is not an isolated event nor was it only culturally motivated. This novel does not explore the political or economic motivations of the Young Turks, but we do get a sense of America's awareness of the atrocities and their attempts to secretly provide humanitarian aid in the camps and arrange safe houses and deportations. Kevork, who we find at the beginning of the novel in Aleppo, Syria working as an Arab shoemaker, becomes a courier for the money because he is, in fact, an Armenian, the Americans can trust him, and because he looks like an Arab, he won't be arrested. However, this too is complicated. Kevork's motivation is to look for his betrothed, Marda, in the camps, while the Americans (Miss Schultz and John Coren) deliberately foil his efforts because of his value as a courier in their mission to save refugees. Kevork wants the Americans to send a message to the orphanage to see if Marta is alive, but here we see the dilemma:

In her [Miss Schultz] heart, she knew that the right thing to do was to send this telegraph. But John Coren had warned her that Kevork might ask this of her. He told her that under no circumstances should she send the message on. He explained that they needed Kevork's talent as a courier. What would happen to the thousands of starving Armenians if Kevork ran off to find his Marta? Wasn't humanity best served if he thought her dead? (73)

Baer, Elizabeth. "A New Algorithm in Evil: Children's Literature in a Post-Holocaust World." (2000).
Kidd, Kenneth. "'A' is for Auschwitz: Psychoanalysis, Trauma, Theory, and 'The Children's Literature of Atrocities.'"  (2005).
Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk. Daughter of War: A Novel. Markham, Ont.: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2008. Print.
Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk. The Hunger. Toronto: Dundurn Group, 1999. Print.
Skrypuch, Marsha Forchuk. Nobody's Child. Toronto: Boardwalk, 2003. Print.