SUFFERING AND FORGIVENESS IN JONATHAN COE’S THE ROTTERS’ CLUB

Abstract

The present paper analyses the issues of suffering, forgiveness and reconciliation in the contemporary British novelist,Jonathan Coe’s The Rotters’ Club. Through a psychoanalytical perspective, it discusses the reconciliation process involving Marie, an old woman, who appeals on her two grandsons and a German boy to forgive each other. Marie’s call for the writing of the Jew wartime memory may help reconcile her two grandsons and Rolf Beauman, the German boy. In this regard, the analysis shows how recounting past historical grievance can help the victim to deal with post war trauma in order to forgive others. In addition to the episodes about the main character Marie, it emphasises. Inger’s suicide and the conflict among the three boys as a psychological dilemma of unforgiveness in the fiction