JEZIK OŽILJKA: NARATIVNI DISKURS I SUBJEKTIVNA TRAUMA U ROMANU „DERVIŠ I SMRT“ MEŠE SELIMOVIĆA

Abstract

This paper explores the narrative and linguistic shaping of trauma in Meša Selimović’s novel Death and the Dervish. Applying William Labov’s model, the analysis focuses on two key episodes: the news of the brother’s arrest and the conversation with the muselim. The aim of the study is to demonstrate how Labov’s narrative structure can be applied to literary discourse and how such a framework reveals the protagonist’s psychological traumas and inner scars. The applied qualitative analysis enables a systematic examination of how the syntactic and semantic features of clauses express trauma and its consequences, as well as how different narrative units interconnect to form a coherent structure that reflects the protagonist’s subjective experience. The findings show that the protagonist’s psychological traumas and internalized scars are articulated through syntactic and semantic shifts that mirror his emotional responses, while Labov’s model reveals that episodes such as the brother’s arrest and the conversation with the muselim together construct an interrelated narrative structure that simultaneously shapes and thematizes the traumatic experience.