Academic Scientific JournalsPerpetrator trauma in Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26881/bp.2025.4.08Keywords:
Martin Amis, perpetrator trauma, ethics of violence, postmemory, psychological “doubling”Abstract
This paper addresses a fictional representation of the perpetrator trauma phenomenon, as distinct from moral injury and PTSD, in Martin Amis’s novel Time’s Arrow. It connects the notion of perpetrator trauma with the “ethics of violence” in the context of postmemory. The article identifies artistic techniques of trauma narrativization, such as “doubling” (re-enacted through recreation of historical prototypes, the internal and external perspectives in one narrative voice, character splitting, darkly ironic antitheses, and play on words reflecting the perversion of ethical norms); a reverse narrative structure mirroring moral inversion; the character’s identity metamorphosis; psychosomatic details; and recurrent oneiric imagery. The paper also highlights the novel’s purpose as a warning against historical amnesia and possible future atrocities, and outlines the social, psychological, and ideological conditions that enable genocide.
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References
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