Memory, Haunting, and Duality: Malaysian Amnesia within the Uncanny Home in Chuah Guat Eng's Days of Change

• Main Author: Ho, Hannah M. Y.
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: Gothic haunting; Malaysian contemporary fiction; memory loss; nation; postcolonial uncanny
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss41/4; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/kk/article/2046/viewcontent/KK_2041_2C_202023_204_20Regular_20section_20__20Ho.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This article analyzes Chuah Guat Eng’s Days of Change as a postcolonial Gothic fiction by discussing instances of haunting and repressed memory in the novel. It examines memory loss in the family and the nation, triggered by traumatic events and leading to haunting and the haunted. Using the concept of the uncanny, this study explores the postcolonial fears and disruptions that, paradoxically, open up creative thinking for revisionist history. It contends that Chuah Guat Eng’s novel offers a critique of postcolonial othering while also insisting on acts of remembering to mitigate amnesia. The paper evaluates desires for a reconciled home and hybrid approaches to Malaysian identity as possible constructive responses to amnesia. In line with contextualized readings of the postcolonial gothic, it also looks at the sociopolitical systems of postcolonial Malaysia, which is seen in this study as a violently amnesiac nation.