American and British Studies Annual (Dec 2013)
Relocated from an Elevator to a Cattle Car: Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Thane Rosenbaum’s Elijah Visible
Abstract
This article analyzes Thane Rosenbaum’s short-story cycle / novel-in-stories Elijah Visible in which the fragmented postmodern protagonist Adam Posner is profoundly affected by the traumatic legacy of his parents. Although with each story his identity is modified, the experience of this American Adam is framed by the feeling of being relocated in space and time. It is shaped by postmemory, to use Marianne Hirsch’s concept characterizing the vicarious witnessing of the traumatic past. Being immersed in the Holocaust, Rosenbaum is at the same time aware of its unspeakability; he knows that words may fail to transport the reader to the scene of the crime. Despite his obsession with the Holocaust, Rosenbaum stresses his conviction that the Holocaust should not be the sole formative element of Jewish identity for his generation. The present article attempts to illuminate the mediation of traumatic experience between two generations and to show that the intergenerational transmission of trauma complicates relationships between survivors and their children, who have often felt burdened by the survivors’ silence about the Holocaust, resulting in the alienation of the post-Holocaust generation from their parents.
