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411243

A Psychoanalytic Study of Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat

Article

Last updated: 15 Feb 2025

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اللغة الإنجليزية

Abstract

Drawing on a psychoanalytic approach, the present paper tackles Yussef El Guindi's Back of the Throat (2006) as a study of the American attitude towards Arab/Muslim Americans after the 9/11 attacks, with a special focus on the traumatic effects arising from police interrogations throughout the play. This is done by employing such features as fear, verbal and physical attacks, inhuman practices, cynicism, scapegoating, etc. as negotiated by psychoanalysts like Allan Young, Philip Bonifacio, Marna Young and others. In a seven-character one-act piece, El Guindi illustrates how the police officers, traumatized by the 9/11 attacks, pass on their own trauma to innocent people on so fabricated evidence that they may appear as more sinned against than sinning. The paper has reached three findings. (1) The playwright fulfills his target of showing the American traumatization of Arab/Muslim Americans as due to the West's old view of the latter as inferior and uncivilized. (2) Trauma survivors (the police officers) usually have to pass their trauma on to their victims (by means of cynical inhuman practices). (3) The 9/11 acute trauma has developed into different chronic traumas due to passing it on to others.

DOI

10.21608/egsl.2024.411243

Keywords

9/11 attacks, Arab & Muslim American, physical/verbal attack, psychological trauma, trauma survivors

Authors

First Name

Khaled Saad

Last Name

Sirwah

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Professor of English Literature Kafr El-Sheikh University

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Orcid

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Volume

1

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

53744

Issue Date

2024-07-01

Receive Date

2025-02-11

Publish Date

2024-07-01

Page Start

49

Page End

76

Print ISSN

3009-786X

Link

https://egsl.journals.ekb.eg/article_411243.html

Detail API

http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=411243

Order

411,243

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

3,323

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

المجلة المصرية للدراسات الأدبية واللغوية

Publication Link

https://egsl.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

A Psychoanalytic Study of Yussef El Guindi’s Back of the Throat

Details

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Article

Created At

15 Feb 2025