Re-rooting in Time Exile and the Rhizomatic Framework of Trauma in Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge

PDF
Published: Sep 18, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.46965
Keywords:
Time Temporal dislocation Exile Trauma Healing Rhizome Lan Cao Monkey Bridge
Nadjiba Bouallegue
University of 8 May 1945 Guelma, Algeria
Abstract

This article examines temporality in Monkey Bridge (1997), arguing that exiles inhabit a liminal temporal space suspended between a nostalgic past and an imagined future. Trauma intensifies this dislocation by disrupting linear time and destabilizing the self. Moving beyond classical trauma theory rooted in psychoanalytic models associated with Sigmund Freud and Cathy Caruth, the article situates Cao’s narrative within culturally specific frameworks that reject a single originating wound, emphasizing instead multiple, intersecting sources of pain. Drawing on the concept of the rhizome developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the article mobilizes a rhizomatic framework to theorize trauma as emerging from the entanglement of war, exile, and family conflict, focusing in particular on how the destratification of memory and identity structures may lead either to disintegration or to transformation. The article further proposes a rhizomatic model of healing in which pain becomes a catalyst for renewal. Ultimately, it argues that healing in Monkey Bridge requires a cautious re-rooting in time, where memory becomes the ground for resilience and future becoming.

Article Details
  • Section
  • Articles
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
Aciman, A. (Ed.). (1999). Letters of transit: Reflections on exile, identity, language, and loss. The New Press.
Asimiadis, D., & Kagioglou, F. (2026). The trauma of autonomy: Neoliberalism and the forms of the subject's exile. Dia-noesis: A Journal of Philosophy, 18, 63–82. https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.43443
Balaev, M. (2008). Trends in literary trauma theory. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 41(2), 149–166. [suspicious link removed]
Bennett, J. (2005). Empathic vision: Affect, trauma, and contemporary art. Stanford University Press.
Bouallegue, N. (2011). The Woman Warrior and The Joy Luck Club [MA dissertation]. University of Badji Mokhtar, Annaba.
Bouallegue, N. (2023). Exile and cultural identity in Vietnamese American fiction. Dia-Noesis: A Journal of Philosophy, 14.
Cao, L. (1998). Monkey Bridge. Penguin.
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cheung, K.-K. (2018). Articulate silences: Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Joy Kogawa. Cornell University Press.
Craps, S. (2012). Postcolonial witnessing: Trauma out of bounds. Palgrave Macmillan.
Craps, S. (2014). Beyond Eurocentrism: Trauma theory in the global age. In G. Buelens, S. Durrant, & R. Eaglestone (Eds.), The future of trauma theory: Contemporary literary and cultural criticism (pp. 45–61). Routledge.
Dafov, B. (2026). Temporal rupture and the logic of the lack: Trauma, exile, and the fragmentation of subjectivity. Dia-noesis: A Journal of Philosophy, 18, 159–186. https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.43449
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.
Erikson, K. (1995). Notes on trauma and community. In C. Caruth (Ed.), Trauma: Explorations in memory (pp. 183–199). The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Freud, S. (1961). Beyond the pleasure principle (J. Strachey, Trans.). Bantam Books. (Original work published 1920)
Huang, Z., & Li, W. (2024). Strategic use of karma in Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge. Religions, 15(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15040404
Kingston, M. H. (1981). The woman warrior. Picador.
Koch, E. (2000). Representations of dread: The dreaded self and the dreaded state of the self. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 69(2), 295–325.
Ling, A. (Ed.). (1990). Between worlds: Women writers of Chinese ancestry. Pergamon Press.
McClennen, S. A. (2004). The dialectics of exile: Nation, time, language, and space in Hispanic literatures. Purdue University Press.
Polychroniou, A. (2026). Towards an egalitarian synchronicity of displacement: Re-imagining shared temporality as unifying grounds for social solidarity. Dia-noesis: A Journal of Philosophy, 18, 313–342. https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.43466
Rothberg, M. (2006). Between Auschwitz and Algeria: Multidirectional memory and the counterpublic witness. Critical Inquiry, 33(1), 158–184.
Rubenstein, R. (2001). Home matters: Longing and belonging, nostalgia and mourning in women’s fiction. Palgrave.
Satterlee, M. (2004). How memory haunts: The impact of trauma on Vietnamese immigrant identity in Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge. The Humanities, 31(2), 1–20.
Schuback, M. S. C. (2011). Lovtal till intet: Essäer om filosofi och estetik [Eulogy to nothing: Essays on philosophy and aesthetics]. Glänta produktion.
Spector, R. H. (n.d.). Vietnam War. Britannica Academic. https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Vietnam-War/110301
Visser, I. (2018). Trauma in non-Western contexts. In J. R. Kurtz (Ed.), Trauma and literature (pp. 124–137). Cambridge University Press.