Loss, Bereavement and Defensive Mechanisms in Nada Jarrar’s Dreams of Water and Nathan Harris’s The Sweetness of Water
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Date
2025-06-19
Authors
Zeinab Bahar
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Publisher
An-Najah National University
Abstract
Drawing on psychoanalytic theories of loss, bereavement and coping strategies outlined by Freud and Butler, this thesis depicts the images of grief, mourning and trauma in Nada Jarrar's Dreams of Water (2007) and in Nathan Harris's The Sweetness of Water (2021). Moreover, the thesis will use the postcolonial theory defined by Homi K. Bhahba and Edward Said to show that colonialism has a hand in causing bereavement and in changing the colonized people, especially in the issues related to identity and freedom. Furthermore, I employ Foucault’s writings on scars to show that wars leave wounds, which will not coalesce over time. I employ Feminism and Eco-feminism as well to argue that civil wars traumatize people, especially women. However, it is argued here that women use coping mechanisms to push forward the pain of loss better than men. Nonetheless, the bereaved people likewise the characters in both novels continue living with empty spaces, love ties and future hopes.