Visual Perception In Anil's Ghost

Psychological studies and discussions have underpinned the assumption that certain core aspects of trauma rely heavily upon categories of vision or visual perception. In essence, vision can be thought of as man’s vehicle for knowledge, exploration, and connection to the world; thus, it is subject to the effects of traumatic experience on mankind. Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost can be interpreted as such - staging a strong interconnection between trauma and vision, it solidifies this human sensory experience in the form of loss and restoration of identity as a marker of existence, alongside the formation of community and the treatment of mourning.

Take, for instance, the concept of (visual) witnessing. Instead of witnessing the actual event, most often the characters witness the effects, the trauma of crimes that have already been perpetrated. Additionally, Oondatje rarely gives accounts from the perspective of the

Despite its relatively short length (pages 172-5), the story abounds with references to visual perception and visual

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old … she doesn’t know or care. She sees two more heads on the far side of the bridge and can tell even from here that she recognizes one of them. She would shrink down into herself, go back, but she cannot. She feels something is behind her, whatever is the cause of this. She desires to become nothing at all. Mind capable of nothing. She does not even think of releasing them from this public gesture. Cannot touch anything because everything feels alive, wounded and raw but alive. She begins running forward, past their eyes, her own shut dark until she is past them. Up the hill towards the school. She keeps running forward, and then she sees more.