Trauma Theory and its Literary Manifestations

Abstract

"The present thesis studies the theory of trauma and traces its literary manifestations aiming to highlight the relationships that link literary trauma theory to trauma theory affiliated to such disciplines as psychoanalytical and legal studies. The impetus for this research stemmed from my desire to have a better understanding of the underlying structures of the traumatic experience and reception. And it can be said that literature, with its live characters, evocative setting, and eloquent style can be regarded as one of the most fertile fields for studying trauma theory. For this reason, the study traces mainly two of the literary manifestations of trauma theory in selected literary works that belong to two different cultural contexts: The Steward of Christendom (1995) and The Secret Scripture (2008) by the Irish novelist, poet and dramatist Sebastian Barry and I Saw Ramallah (1997) by the Palestinian poet and novelist Mourid Barghouti. What does happen in a traumatic experience? What are the symptoms that diagnose a traumatic past? How are characters and places represented in trauma narratives? And what is meant by PTSD? These questions, and more, are to be discussed in the research undertaken. The main argument of the present study relates to how trauma texts employ specific thematic as well as stylistic strategies to reflect the enigmatic nature of the traumatic experience that causes “disruption of our moods of understanding” and challenges “our very comprehension” as stated by Cathy Caruth as well as the syndrome of PTSD presented by the American Psychiatric Association (Toremans 333). The topic of trauma emerged originally from social, psychiatric, and psychological discourse and was a cultural trend in a wider sense until certain critics, that the present study investigates, produced trauma theory as a theoretical framework for literary practice. The present thesis investigates trauma theory since its origins in psychoanalytical, medical and legal discourses emphasizing literary trauma theory in particular as illustrated in the works of Cathy Caruth and Anne Whitehead, the two major literary critics of literary trauma theory. The present thesis aims to introduce the reader as well to other key critics and theorists whose essential and radical contributions to trauma studies can never be ignored such as Sigmund Freud, Shoshana Felman, and Geoffrey Hartman. The thesis traces the multiple definitions of the concept of trauma according to different critics and theorists in the field of trauma studies. Their theorizations overlap at some points and differ at others depending on their focus, their purposes, and their different professions. The present study offers an application of two literary manifestations of trauma theory to selected works: the technique of intertextuality as a stylistic literary manifestation of trauma theory in Barry’s play The Steward of Christendom and novel The Secret and landscape as a thematic manifestation of trauma theory in Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah."