ABSTRACT
The chapter interrogates the discourse of Unwittification of the collective subject in the texts Bird Box and “Khudito Pashan,” consequently drawing an analogy with contemporary COVID-19–affected society. Unwittification is the act of depriving someone of wit, causing derangement. Bird Box engages in an exploration of the sensory not-have, achieving Unwittification through the Lacanian “lack [manque]” and the Heideggerian “uncanny [Unheimliche].” By employing Graham Herman's views on “Intentional objects,” the Creatures in Bird Box can be categorized as “Intentional Creatures,” effectuated by virtue of their spatiotemporal presence being a paradoxical binary; their states of being and non-being are defined by the effect they have on the sanity of the human beings of that world, much like the Corona virus. “Khudito Pashan” demonstrates Unwittification through a gradual decay of spatial, temporal. and intellectual memory – a supramodal degradation synonymous with collective forgetfulness and obliviation in a transnational frame of reference. The collective memory is quick in forgetting localized crises, but globalized catastrophe facilitates a transcultural and transnational exercise of remembrance. COVID-19 has caused a breakage of cultural and spatiotemporal fluidity and mobility, disrupting global sense-making and engendering Unwittification as a consequence of this collective derangement.
