Silenced Tongues, Speaking Bodies: The Representation of Postcolonial Bodies in Incarceration in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s This Blinding Absence of Light

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of postcolonial bodies in incarceration in postcolonial Morocco in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s This Blinding Absence of Light. This representation is explored in light of two different literary theories and concepts: Julia Kristeva’s “abject bodies”, and Arthur Frank’s “disciplined bodies”. The first concept “abject bodies” mirrors the postcolonial oppressive regime’s desired representation of the political detainees’ bodies as raw and primitive, loathsome and excluded, and dehumanized and desexualized. Such degrading representation triggers feelings of humiliation, estrangement, denial, and alienation on the part of the prisoners, creating an identity crisis and a self and other dilemma. However, the second concept “disciplined bodies” serves as a tool of resistance, since the prisoners introduce a counter-representation of their bodies that defies the one prescribed and depicted by the state. By practicing self- control and regimentation over their bodies, the prisoners are able to reach a state of spiritual transcendence through their permeable bodies, a state that helps them escape their corporeal reality of suffering and abjection into the sublime ethereal realms of meditation, emancipation, renewal, inspiration, and ultimate power.