My final project will be an essay about the novel The Deep, elaborating and researching the concept of History. Within the story, I will analyze and explore the scenes of ‘Rememberance,’ and its impact on Yetu physically and emotionally. To navigate intergenerational trauma and how we tell these narratives ethically and fully, discussing how the body holds memories, trauma, and history.
Below is my working Thesis:
In The Deep by Rivers Solomon, intergenerational trauma surfaces as a living archive, revealing how bodies carry and transmit historical memory. Through Yetu’s anguish, showcased in her collapse under the weight of Rememberance, reveals how bodies become living repositories of history. By examining the ethical responsibilities of narrating such inherited pain, this essay argues that the novel redefines history not as a fixed record but as an embodied, collective experience shaped through storytelling, silence, and survival.
This is a great thesis– smart, clear, and sophisticated. I think you might consider using Walcott or the Penguin as sources OR any of the Black studies/theory texts I brought to class over the last week, if you want to move in that direction. Either way, the sources you use will determine which avenue your essay pursues– Black studies or mermaids, environmental studies or archive theory?
You might consider focusing more on how ” bodies carry and transmit historical memory”– being specific about WHERE in the text this happens; and, does it matter that the bodies are mermaids or that the environment for these bodies is water?
I am happy to discuss this more, particularly which avenue you choose to pursue and which scholarship to use. I look forward to reading this!