Melodrama Tropes as Language Registers of Trauma in the Gacaca Trilogy
Abstract
This paper examines how melodrama tropes function as language registers of trauma in one of the Gacaca Trilogy: Living Together Again in Rwanda (Aghion, 2003). Therefore, the paper sought to interrogate how the documentary employed melodrama tropes as a narrative framework technique to depict narrative registers of trauma. Initially, the paper explored the melodrama trope of recognition, rooted in a symbolic Manichean worldview, to narrate the major conflicts of the selected trilogy. Therefore, it scrutinised how the trilogy's narrative structure is constructed around moral oppositions of 'good and evil' to represent trauma, and secondly, it examined melodrama's last-minute rescue trope that narrated sudden interventions that saved a character from despair. The paper employed a multi-modal transcription method for decoding primary data, and the findings were interpreted using narratological and literary trauma theories. The paper revealed that Manichean and last-minute melodramatic tropes function as key narrative devices that encode traumatic experiences, shaping the documentary's registers of trauma. In addition, the paper concluded that these melodrama tropes mediate the representation of war trauma, contributing to broader discourses on memory, violence, and the narrative structure of the Gacaca trilogy
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References
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Copyright (c) 2025 Duke Nyakoria Abuga, Bwocha Nyagemi Bwocha, PhD, Christopher Okemwa, PhD
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