Canadian Literature

Memory Anchored by Place Attachment and Cognitive Maps in Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight and The Cat’s Table

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Justy Joseph1 & Dr. Nirmala Menon2

1PhD Research Scholar, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, India. ORCID id: 0000-0002-7182-0108. Email id: phd1901261006@iiti.ac.in

2Associate Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Indore. Email id: nmenon@iiti.ac.in

 Volume 12, Number 6, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n6.18

Abstract

Recollection is a gangplank between an obsolete past, indisputable present and an unidentified future, but human memory is convoluted as the compendium of a landscape.  Perceptions, values and experiences fastened to a landscape can anchor memories, shift perceptions and can alter the aboriginal integrity and cognitive capabilities of an individual. This research article studies the Canadian Nobel Prize winning author Michael Ondaatje’s novels The Cat’s Table (2012) and Warlight (2018) venturing to understand how characters and their identities are created with the aid of memory. This study examines how place attachment and understanding of environmental configurations through generation of cognitive maps distorts or ascends recollection.

Keywords: place attachment, cognitive geography, cognitive maps, memory, landscape

Eco-psychology and The Role of Animals to Heal Trauma in Life of Pi

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Diren Ashok Khandhar1, Hardev Kaur Jujar Singh2, Rosli Talif3, Zainor Izat Zainal4

Universiti Putra Malaysia.

Corresponding author: ORCID: 0000-0002-0526-2435. Email diren.msa@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 2, April-June, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.14

 

Abstract

Psychological trauma brings about adverse effects on affected victims and the manifestations vary from an individual to another. Some of the more common traits identified in trauma victims include extreme anxiety, nightmares, hallucinations and flashbacks; in which there is no specific reference of time on when a victim may start to exhibit these characteristics. In addition, the mode and duration taken for recovery of psychological trauma may also differ depending on the severity of the initial trauma and assistance available to trauma victims for recovery to transpire. As such, this present article intends to study the varied manifestations of trauma in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2001) and to identify how trauma was negotiated through the human-animal relationship formed in the literary text. Besides employing concepts under Trauma theory, this article would also elucidate the concept of ecological unconscious under the lens of Eco-psychology to identify how the incorporation of nature, animals specifically, plays an integral part in the recovery process of a trauma victim.

Keywords: Animals, Eco-psychology, Recovery, Trauma.

 

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Mapping the Great Divide in the Lyrics of Leonard Cohen

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Thomas J. Haslam

College of Liberal Arts, Shantou University, China.  Email: tjhaslam@msn.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.s01

Received February 28, 2017; Accepted June 10, 2017; Published June 15, 2017.

Abstract

It is generally accepted that Leonard Cohen’s songwriting changed significantly in the early 1980s, due to Cohen’s choice of a Casio synthesizer over a guitar as his instrument of composition.  But this explanation begs fundamental questions of how we understand change and continuity in Cohen’s work across nearly five decades and fourteen studio albums.  This study draws upon text mining and data visualization results which map Cohen’s lyrical vocabulary.  Based on that data, it offers a reinterpretation of the Great Divide, the presumed departure in songwriting between Cohen’s first six and last eight studio albums.


Keywords: text mining, lyrics, Leonard Cohen, Judaism.

Acknowledgement: BlaueWunder, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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