Trauma and Storytelling: A “Re-Ordering” of Reality

In an interview, Shani Mootoo describes how writing can serve as an escape from trauma by “re-ordering” lived experiences (110). This “re-ordering” of experiences in fictional worlds grants her “permission” to simply exist in the world, away from the pressures and material results (like abuse) of marginalization and oppression (110).

We have discussed in class how perspective and location impact how we view the world, and I think this relates to how Mootoo uses lived experience to inform her stories. While these stories are fiction, they embody some truth because they are a re-telling of reality from a particular perspective or location. In a sense, this “fiction” could technically be another version of reality, just through a different lens.

I see this represented in the show Our Flag Means Death, which fictionalizes the historical figures Stede Bonnet (The Gentleman Pirate) and Edward Teach (Blackbeard)–two pirates from the early 1700s. The show places their story in a world where their queerness is not “othered,” granting them “permission,” as Mootoo puts it, to simply exist as they navegate the world as queer men (110). The show’s writers, then, “re-order” the world in order to explore the relationship that forms between Stede and Ed without homophobia (internal or external) as the conflict. Moreover, not only is the show itself a “re-ordering” of events, but Ed also engages in what Mootoo describes about writing and storytelling as a means of coping with trauma.

In episode 6, Ed tells the crew the story about the time he saw the Kraken, a mythical sea monster, kill his father. But later, he admits to Stede that it was not in fact the Kraken, but he who had killed his father after witnessing him commit an act of domestic abuse against his mother. In a sense, although he added some mythical elements to his story, he “re-ordered” what happened in order to disassociate from the trauma of having killed someone, let alone his father, and of having been witness to domestic violence at a young age. I think this moment also connects to Mala’s story in Cereus Blooms at Night in how she kills her father in a moment of fear and in response to sexual violence, but then separates this memory from her childhood self Pohpoh, establishing a new story within her own life to protect herself from the trauma she has suffered.

In revealing to Stede what happened in his past, Ed also admits that despite the legacy of violence and aggression that surrounds Blackbeard—the performance Ed puts on to emulate the image of a ruthless pirate—he has never actually killed anyone else. Instead, his performance as Blackbeard shields him from the trauma of his childhood, and protects him from potentially traumatic experiences as a pirate in the present. Mala, too, attempts to shield herself from her trauma in how she separates her experiences from Pohpoh’s, “re-ordering” what happened to protect her younger self in her memories. I thought it was interesting that Ed’s and Mala’s storytelling “does not attempt to pulverize ‘bad,”’ as neither of them eliminate the traumatic experiences completely (Mootoo 110). Instead, they “re-order” their experiences in ways that allow them “permission” to exist, and to live even just a little less burdened by that trauma (Mootoo 110). Their respective versions of events are no less real than the events that occurred in their pasts. Rather, they use that past to inform how they navigate the present in order to keep themselves safe.

I am including the link to the scene where Ed reveals this to Stede, but content warning for domestic abuse and violence. The show is technically a rom com, but this moment is a bit heavy: https://youtu.be/hYVB-z3KnLA