CARÁCTER ECTS ASIGNATURA DESPLIEGUE TEMPORAL
NIVEL 3: Enfermería Comunitaria 5.5.1.1.1 Datos Básicos del Nivel
As she continues to struggle with the writer, Zeina insists that she is not just a returning granddaughter, although she admits this novel does not concern her as much as it concerns her grandmother (Ibid 34). She resists the writer’s attempt to convey her story as simply that of a traitor whose betrayal appears in stark contrast to her own grandmother’s saintly devotion to Iraq (Ibid 35). This attempt, Zeina maintains, robs her of having her own voice and of explaining her own story. In fact, Zeina accuses the writer herself of naivety as she does not understand that, despite her returning as an American soldier, she still retains her identity as an Iraqi (Ibid 102). Zeina admits that “writing has the power to forge” (Ibid 103) as it does not convey the full complexity of human emotions. As a result, Rahma and Zeina try to find a channel that conveys their sentiments without the interference of the writer (Ibid 103). At other times, Zeina wonders if that voice coming out of her mouth as she admonishes the American soldier for making fun of Shiite rituals is hers. She surmises that it could be her father’s or probably even the writer who is trying to imitate her tone and her accent (Ibid 120).
At times, Zeina is in control of writing, at others she gives up her position of control, as in the instance where Zeina visits her grandmother’s house in her American army uniform (Ibid 113), through which the degree of shock and rejection of Zeina’s chosen duty by her grandmother becomes apparent. Finally, Zeina admits that the computer, which was her medium of expression, has given up on her writing in reaction to the writer’s temperament, who eventually won her battle with the American granddaughter revealing her as the real loser, and in the same vein rendering the victorious writer old fashioned (Ibid 104). Both remained unable to meet on a common ground or embrace one another’s point of view. Kachachi, in turn, explains to Zeina that Rahma, Zeina’s grandmother who represents Zeina’s own history, is the one who is in control of the writing and that she is still trying to assert her Iraqi identity and her faith in resisting the American occupation (Ibid).
It is important to note that the struggle over asserting the voice in the novel between Kachachi and Zeina only serves to highlight the importance of those addressed. The
valorisation of the ‘narrattee’37 is quite significant in The American Granddaughter as both Zeina and Kachachi explain the correctness of their viewpoints to an absent audience who most probably represents the Iraqi people. Zeina tries to maintain an objective view of immigration, the Anglo-American invasion and her own belonging to Iraq, while Kachachi insists on exposing Zeina as a traitor. In this case, the novelist estimates the degree to which readers could accept a defence of Zeina, and eventually exposes Zeina as rejecting of an identity that balances her American and her Iraqi affiliations. Loyalty in this instance dictates that Zeina realizes her disillusionment with the Anglo-American operation and recognizes her actions as foolishness and naivety.
At the end of her journey, Zeina describes her experience in Iraq as a sweet but painful experience – one that bestows upon her a special status that sets her apart from “any other normal American woman” (Ibid 11). In the manner of other exiles, she similarly expresses her difference and highlights it as she returns to Detroit. Moreover, Kachachi’s novel is replete with restorative nostalgia and debilitating longing for a time that has passed, even if the central character herself refuses to admit it. Zeina concludes that there is only one home – that to which she belongs, in which she is rooted through her grandparents, her foster brothers and through history. Her account’s conclusion ends far away from the postcolonial assumptions about a metaphor of migration. From the very beginning of her journey, even as she stated her American identity, Zeina approached Iraq as a place of memories. She notices how areas have changed and how she is now perceived – in a way different than before, and on her return she recognizes her exile. Although, for example, she is fluent in both Arabic and English and makes interpreting a profession, Zeina struggles to convey the meanings of phrases that come to her mind in either language. At times she curses at her Iraqi brother in English and wishes he could understand how vulgar the meaning was, and at other times she wishes her fellow American soldiers could understand the intricacies and complexities of her Arabic words.
37 The term ‘narrattee’ was employed by Ken Seigneurie in his article ‘The Importance of Being
Kawabata: The Narrative in Today’s Literature of Commitment’ (2008). Seigneurie proposed that there are times when the identity of those addressed by a certain novel is as important as the identity of the novelist. This question of the imagined narrattee gains its importance from the point of view of Seigneurie because it explores “the problem of language and commitment” (2008: 116): if we know who the story is meant to move, convince or repulse, the writers are coerced into appropriate communication while we as readers have the chance to judge their objective, as well as observe their choices of belonging.