Hannah Lee
November 17, 2020
Expo 25
Dr. Lisa Gulesserian
On November 10, 2020, there was a ceasefire over Nagorono-Karabakh, an ethnically Armenian region that is being disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It only takes a look at online threats where Turks will deny in one breath the Armenian Genocide, where 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were exterminated, and in the next breath threaten to “finish what their grandparents started,” to see why Armenians believe they are facing an existential struggle. Not only are there people online threatening it—the president of Turkey has said it himself .
“In My Dreams I Tell My Grandfather About the Voices,” a poem written by Gregory Djanikian, depicts a dream conversation between a child and his grandfather about hearing the voices of their relatives, who were victims of the Armenian Genocide.
“The Dead,” by Ayse Papatya Bucak is a short story about a wealthy sponge merchant, Arapian and his wife Harriet, who host a birthday party for Arapian in the Key West. The guest speaker is Anahid, an Genocide survivor who writes books, gives speeches, and stars in her own film The Armenian Girl to raise money for the Near East Relief, helping save Armenians.
Although on the outset it might appear “The Dead” and “In My Dream” are two completely different works, actually they can be compared in their subject matter; additionally, both use carefully crafted metaphors and contain a multiplicity of voices in order to illustrate the schism between the character’s sense of self from themselves. This is emotional alienation as a psychological tactic to detach not just from their trauma but also from life, resulting in depression and loss of interest in life. Curiously, the voices converge in “The Dead” but stay separate and distinct in “In My Dream”.
First, the most apparent difference between the two works of literature are the titles, but the subject matter of “In My Dream” is the title of the short story—“The Dead”. The poem is titled “In My Dream” because the speaker tells his grandfather about the voices in his “Dream” rather than in reality. It is too painful for his grandfather to talk about the traumatic past in reality, and it is in the setting of the dream that he can access the haunting liveliness of the spirits. Even in the grandchild’s dream, his grandfather continues to deflect the questions that he asks pertaining to the dead, as he would in real life. It is as though the grandchild is seeking honesty in his dreams that he could not find in reality, but even in his dreams his grandfather does not tell him the tragic stories of the past. Moreover, the speaker asks about “a voice” he hears when he is in his bed at night and the “voices” of the “earth” talking to him and asks of them why they are “not asleep or in a resting place” (all, Djanikian 42). The grandfather responds “They are asleep, but their dreams are walking out/ into the world like stories” (Djanikian 42). By placing the poem’s setting in a dream, Djanikian not only creates a safe space for a potentially more candid conversation between two family members, but he also illustrates that the activity in his sleep is like the restlessness of the dead. The activity in the grandchild’s dreams reflect the stirring discontent of the spirits who died in the Armenian Genocide, their stories untold. Additionally, it is also possible that in waking life the grandfather is dead, and thus the grandchild cannot tell his grandfather about the voices in his dreams in waking reality, but can only speak to his grandfather in his dream. Therefore, although the subject matter of the titles are different, it is possible that the subject matter of the actual writings are about the same topic.
Meanwhile, “The Dead” is titled thusly for a multitude of reasons. “The Dead” is not always used literally but figuratively; one of the reasons it is titled “The Dead” is because the third person omniscient narrator reveals in Arapian’s section that “at the time, Arapian thought he did not need forgiveness from the dead” (Bucak 3). Although the topic at hand is the death of his employees, this statement by the narrator illustrates his disregard for the dead in general, including his ancestors and victims of the Armenian Genocide. Arapian denies his heritage outright and believes the dead are dead. There is no element of being haunted, no awareness of a conscience about innocent lives lost. Suppression of identity is a sort of death: death of one’s former self. Arapian suppresses his identity:
He didn’t care if people called him a Turk or an Armenian, a Greek or an American. He had what he needed to get what he wanted, which is to say, money. He wasn’t a bad man but he wasn’t a fool either; he knew how money protected him and Harriet and their son, William, and he knew how if he was smart, it always could (Bucak 6).
However, when Arapian dies, he donates half his money to the Near East Relief, “a fact that gave his son very complicated feelings of bitterness, anger, and shame” (Bucak 13). William’s reaction to his father’s posthumous donation illustrates that despite his “stirring defense of Lucy/ Anahid’s spirit,” he is truly as oblivious as he was at the party: “irreparably drunk and sprawled next to his mother” (Bucak 12, 11).
Arapian’s suppression of his identity: “In Key West, Arapian was known as the Turk, though he was Armenian…The difference between Turk and Armenian? The Turk extracted the Armenian’s fingernails” causes him hidden psychological damage (Bucak 1). The willful ignorance of his identity is passed on generationally to his son, who is spoiled and ignorant to what would have happened to him had he been born in Armenia. Thus, there is an element of the death of his heritage when Arapian dies.
Another reason the short story is titled “The Dead” is because the story depicts a painful past that causes Anahid to separate herself from her former self in Armenia, where she underwent “wartime starvation”, “rape”, and “the loss of her entire family”; there is a past self and a present self, and her past self is dead (all, Bucak 7). When she gets to the point in her story where she comes to America, she becomes herself as she is now. But retelling the story causes her to die again; reliving her trauma kills her.
And yet Mrs. Brown, the nurse who chaperones her, believes that “the sacrifice of this one girl might well be acceptable in the light of the greater cause” (Bucak 8). During Anahid’s speech, after a fleeting moment of lucidity and oneness, she sinks back into herself, as the applause erupts: “All that suffering and I only grew in value—here her audiences would begin their applause. Maybe I only grew in value by fifteen cents” (Bucak 5). Anahid must relive her trauma repeatedly in order to raise money for the Near East Fund. Her suffering causes her to become monetarily valuable to the people who use her to raise funds for the Armenian victims.
Secondly, both works of literature employ the use of metaphors to illustrate the trauma and pain of genocide. The grandfather in the poem wants to downplay, mute, or poeticize the violence of the Genocide. For example, when the grandchild asks “who is the woman I heard in my pillow?/ Who is she who comes each night…/ cradling my ear, pouring her voice into it?”, the grandfather responds “No one you can see, a brief shadow on the floor,/ moonlight splashing against the wall” (Djanikian 42, 43). In Djanikian’s sixth use of the word “voice” or “voices,” the grandchild makes an auditory sound become like a liquid that can be poured, and the grandfather responds by making something visual—moonlight—a liquid that can be “[splashed] against the wall” (Djanikian 43). The word “splashing” is a fast, jarring movement compared to a liquid that is gently poured and connotes rejection or even violence (Djanikian 43). It is as if the ghosts of the dead relatives are gently trying to transmit their stories to the next generation, but the grandfather continues to deflect the desires of the relatives, to protect the grandchild’s innocence against the violence of the stories.
The metaphor of the shadow is also used in “The Dead” when Anahid takes “the shadow that filled her each day, and folded it…until it became a tiny black seed inside her” (Bucak 9). The shadow is described as filling her up each day until it becomes “the whole of her,” and refolds it until it is no longer “the whole of her” so that she can sleep at night (Bucak 9). The shadow in “The Dead” represents her sadness, and “In My Dream” the shadow represents the transience of the woman who haunts the narrator. When the grandchild asks whether the woman was the mother or sister of the grandfather, he responds “It was summer, but the sky was a winter’s sky,/ And everything under it was a cloud of gray” (Djanikian 43). By answering in such nebulous terms, with only the metaphor of winter to represent death, the grandfather denies the opportunity to honestly answer the grandchild’s question in a clear, relatable manner that helps heal the traumatic past.
Lastly, both works of literature contain a multiplicity of perspectives and voices in order to portray the traumatic past. Moreover, “The Dead,” which characterizes many, each experiencing trauma of their own, contrasts with the poem which contains a first person voice and the grandfather’s voice. It is an intimate conversation between two family members, and we feel as if we are eavesdropping. In “The Dead,” Harriet dies, Arapian dies of lung cancer, Anahid is an Armenian Genocide survivor, Lucy helps Anahid tell her story, and each character is spoken of in the third person. Originally, I had thought Bucak’s use of the third person omniscient narrative voice depicted the narration of each character of themselves in the third person. I thought it was a psychological tactic to separate themselves from their own self, giving them a sense of distance and safety. However, the third person omniscient voice is a literary device wherein the characters are not narrating themselves, but rather the narrator is a separate voice.
While the separate third person narrative voice in “The Dead” and the voice of the first person grandchild narrative voice in “In My Dream” are both in regular font, in both works of literature, the voice of the direct victim who suffered the Armenian genocide is indicated by italicized font. It is as if the italicized font represents the voice of someone who is living in the past. Both works of literature depict a haunting by a troubled past that repeats over and over in their minds, driving them almost to a schizoid state of mind. They are separated from their present surroundings and their minds are ruminating over their traumatic memories.
However, the voices converge in “The Dead,” bringing hope and fulfillment, but stay distinct and separate in “In My Dreams,” leaving a feeling of incomplete listlessness. The section of “The Dead” told from Anahid’s perspective italicizes the first person narration while the third person omniscient narrator voice of Anahid’s section is not italicized. However, there is a point at which the pattern breaks in “The Dead,” and that is when the words of Anahid in italicized font are echoed by the third person narrative voice:
“Women tried to give their babies away.
Women tried to give their babies away” (Bucak 5).
After this point in the narration, Anahid’s first person narrative voice is no longer in italicized font and becomes a regular type font. It is as if her reverie is rising up to the surface of her consciousness and she is no longer stuck in the past, but present: “In the end, I was bought by an American missionary for a dollar. This is how I came to America. That is how I was saved” (Bucak 5).
For a moment the narrator is present and in connection with herself and her surroundings. It is as if she has been saved or made whole for just one moment, at the thought of being brought to America. The two separate voices, the third person omniscient narrative voice in italics and the first person narrative voice, converge and become one. Thus, in a way, as traumatized as a direct victim of the Armenian Genocide is, the converging of the voices brings hope for completeness or wholeness, however transient or momentary it may be. Meanwhile, there is no such climactic moment in “In My Dreams”. The grandchild, who has never experienced the genocide firsthand, may not experience exhibit as acute PTSD symptoms. But there is also less of an opportunity for “closure,” since they are watching their loved ones hurt and heal, not doing the healing themselves. The person who has never experienced genocide themselves is in a more passive position, both in terms of experiencing trauma but also in terms of healing from it, and may experience dissociation as a way of dealing with second-hand trauma.
The last and perhaps most important reason voices converge in “The Dead” is for emphasis. The specific turning point where the italicized words no longer indicate the first-person narrative voice is “But we are on the way to a happy ending—a story written by another… In the end, I was bought by an American missionary for a dollar” (Bucak 5). The near rhyme of “another” and “dollar” demonstrates a sing-song quality that highlights the joy of the moment, and accentuates the ease on the part of Americans to accept refugees and donate small amounts. A dollar, that means so little to Americans, saved her life.
The third person narrative voice collapses into the world of the character and intermingles with the first person narrative voice, and by default breaks the fourth wall. This signals to the reader our cue to act, to share, to listen, to read, to donate. This is to say, Bucak is pointing to the reader, the American, to know the power of writing a new story. This is the crux of the short story.
In conclusion, there is still a pervasive need for education and action in support of the Armenian cause. Just as Anahid raised money for the Armenian cause through the retelling of her story, and just in the way that Arapian made a generous posthumous donation, we can raise awareness and donate to support the cause of Armenians who need international support and the recognition of Armenian statehood.
These works of literature remain relevant as ever, as there may be another impending Armenian genocide happening today. There are constant fights between Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, and the much smaller nation of Armenia, and it could not be more apparent that this is not a fair fight. Despite a tenuous ceasefire on November 10, 2020, where much of the Armenian minority was displaced, there remains an existential threat against the Armenians who fear for the present and future of their already small nation surrounded by enemies on all sides. History does not just remain history; it pervades the present in subtle and not so subtle ways, not just geo-politically but psychologically as well. People of political power must pay attention to history and to the oppression of Armenian minorities today if we are to stop generational trauma from genocide. Just as Anahid says, “Silence was so important to the Turks, more so every year,” it is important for any person who is able to not stay silent and to educate others about what is going on in Armenia. Not enough people know or understand what is going on and it is easy to be as ignorant as the Americans in “The Dead”—to see an Armenian as a Turk, when in reality the differences could not be overstated (Bucak 1). But it is not enough to know and educate, we must act: in 1915 the “Near East Relief raised $110 million to help refugees from the Ottoman Empire. This is equivalent to $1.25 billion today” (Timeline Highlights). America rallied behind the support of Armenians then and it can again today
Citation:
Bucak, Ayse Paptya. “The Dead” Bomb Magazine. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/the-dead/
Djanikian, Gregory. “In my Dream I tell My Grandfather About the Voices.” So I will Till the Ground: poems by Gregory Djanikian. Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2007.
“Timeline Highlights.” Near East Foundation. https://www.neareast.org/who-we-are/timeline/. Accessed 17 Nov. 2020.