Language is a dual sided sword, it is a medium with which one can motivate the masses, justify unethical causes or capture the depravities the human spirit; wielded correctly this medium either enables devastating destruction or constructive rehabilitation. In her novel “Fugitive Pieces”, Anne Michaels explores the extremities of this duality before illustrating the more obscure ability of language to heal. In the novel, she develops that writing enables an individual to recollect his past and resolve his feelings of remorse , thus allowing him to overcome the traumatic memories of their past and find new meaning in life. This is evident by examining the effects of writing has upon Jakob, Ben’s father and Ben.
In order to advance forwards into the future memories of the past must be recollected, anything otherwise only hinders and disrupts the healing process. Attempting to forget the past serves only a detrimental
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These memories whether unsaid or invisible still hold influence over an individual’s life and forgetting them results in inevitable self harm when they trigger a post traumatic flashback after being easily “undone by a smell, a word, a place” (Michaels 17). The idea that life is able to be seized by remembering the past is first proposed by Athos it it his reasoning for making Jakob review his native alphabet, “It’s your future your remembering” (Michaels 22) , for encouraging him to record the events of his childhood and for instructing him find a way to make beauty necessary ... a way to make necessity beautiful”. Ultimately, what Athos endeavors to teach Jakob is that language has a redeeming quality and that by writing Jakob can save himself. Jakob’s remorse originates