Liminal Existence: Tracing Spectrality in Joseph Skibell’s A Blessing on the Moon

Abstract

In literary discourses, the figure of the spectre is a ubiquitous motif in narratives across various cultures. The influential text of Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx: The State of Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International (1993) inaugurated a ‘spectral turn’ in the academic field. Spectral Criticism explores literature’s symbolic and psychological elements, emphasizing the uncanny and hidden meanings. This paper intends to analyze how spectrality is decisively woven into the fabric of the novel, A Blessing on the Moon (1997) by Joseph Skibell. The study also unravels how the author skilfully employs magical realism to narrate the Holocaust, the most dreadful event in the twentieth century. Through the prism of spectral criticism, this paper examines how Skibell destabilises the notion of death as the ultimate finality highlighting its emancipatory nature. The paper also intends to analyse the representation of the Jewish ghost as the narrator and how death becomes a source of power to ascertain the voice of the marginalised community that had hitherto been subdued in world history.