"This Dream of arctic rest" : Memory, Metaphor and Mental Illnessin Jenny Diski’s Skating to Antarctica

• Main Author: Gray, William
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Luleå tekniska universitet, Pedagogik, språk och Ämnesdidaktik 2009
• Subjects: Antarctic; metaphor; cold; depression; skating; white-ness; Didactics; Didaktik; Arctic; Jenny; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-20911

Jenny Diski's Skating to Antarctica, an autobiographical text published in 1997, engages with Antarctica not only as a literal place, but also as a location of the mind. Her imaginative response to what has traditionally been perceived as an inhuman landscape allows her to view the Polar regions as a mental space, signifying a complex system of images and symbols. Diski's physical voyage functions primarily as a metaphor for her attempt to locate an interior psychological terrain, the discovery of which will dispel her profound sense of self-estrangement.This article contends that Diski's use of the interconnecting metaphors of skating, ice and frozen or numbed emotions provide a rich tapestry of associations which serve to illuminate the process whereby traumatic experiences can subsequently manifest themselves in depression and mental illness. In this respect, the narrative, which explores the author's passion for emotional oblivion and obsession with the colour white, represents a desire to experience her life as an accretion of meaning. Validerad; 2009; 20091027 (ysko)