A fictional insight into the trauma of Nazi war crimes based on Martin Amis’s "Time’s Arrow"

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse the trauma of Nazi war crimes portrayed in Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow (1991) with a special focus on the splits which take place in the structure of the novel. The author analyses the splits which appear in the temporality of the novel and in the consciousness of the main character. Subsequently, the influence of Holocaust trauma on the mind of the perpetrators on the example of the protagonist of Time’s Arrow, Odilo Unverdorben and his soul or conscience which also displays the variety of trauma symptoms, is analysed.