Memories as Internal Structure in We Who Sowed Hurt and Beaded Pains

Abstract

Memories are a defining characteristic of man; they are a form of socialisation of self-worth and they are the premise of the definition of what is good and bad in the African traditional environment. The social media space is now a popular site that is appropriated by depressed personalities to advertise their intention of committing suicide, and these social media sites are also used in the circulation of digital chapbooks. A “Digital Chapbook” is an electronic pamphlet containing creative ideas. The study adopts the discursive method to textual analysis and observes that Kukogho Iruesiri Samson’s We Who Sowed Hurt and Beaded Pains is a digital chapbook, which is hosted on his blog but shared through his Facebook page. There are a lot of scholarships on trauma studies in African literature, but little or no attention is paid to digital chapbooks. Through the application of trauma as a theoretical framework, we observe that memories are the internal structure of We Who Sowed Hurt and Beaded Pains. These memories, which lead to neurosis, make the poetic personas either attempt suicide or actually commit suicide. We submit that the return of the unconscious, which is part of the internal structure of the individual, motivates the individual to attempt suicide.