Flight or Fight: The Portrayal of Denial on the Work of As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

Abstract

Extreme war situations frequently force individuals to get caught on the difficult decision between escape and take a refugee (flight) or stay and fight for their country (fight). As long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh is a novel that explores the issue of Syrian war and explains how guilt, pain, trauma, and suffering are illustrated in literary text. Moreover, by conducting the psychology of literature approach and qualitative method in a form of textual and contextual analysis, this research will unveil how Zoulfa Katouh constructs denial as a narrative strategy in illustrating the traumatic experience and the phenomenon of flight or fight in the context of Syrian war. Textually, the findings show that denial is not merely portrayed as a passive psychological response of the characters, but denial also positioned as the result of the author’s creative process that offers a precise language in expressing the traumatic experiences in a deeply and meaningful way. However, in contextual level, this study uncovered the author’s deliberate use of denial construction as a tool to defend the dignity of refugees while also criticizing the global apathy throughout the humanitarian crisis in Syria.