CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1 Introduction

The leverage of man’s dominance in this planet was possible only through his cognitive
superiority. The act of narration has been one such landmark in the evolution of
the human race. Human beings are inherently narrative creatures and over the years
experimentations with medium, form and technique involved in this artistic endeavor
have never failed to fascinate the readers. The transcendence from oral to written form
marked the beginning of the production of literature. Literature in the written form
has existed on this planet for the past three thousand years and it has served various
purposes like recording history, education, religious scriptures and entertainment. It
takes more than a pen, paper or a word processor to create a piece of literature. It
takes a lot of grit from the writer to cognize what he thinks, feels and remembers and
present it to a group of people. Therefore, memory is a vital ingredient without which,
any form of writing is impossible. In fact, one of the prime objectives of literature is to
preserve and in some cases represent the memory of individuals or an entire civilization.

Memory is one of the most fascinating aspects of the human mind. It is beyond
coincidence that the Greeks worshiped Mnemosyne, an embodiment of memory, and
made her the mother of the nine muses who represented epic poetry, history, music,
tragedy, love poetry, dance, hymns, comedy and astronomy authenticating that memory
is an imperative ingredient in any artistic creation. Until the twentieth century, the
working of the mind and memory remained in the abyss. An ontological rendition
was attempted by philosophers like Plato, Leibinz, Rene Descartes, Immanuel Kant,
Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke and George Berkeley about the nature of human
thinking; however, they were limited by their purely theoretical construct. The launch
of psychology, as a science, in the beginning of the twentieth century, the implication of
the human memory in defining the identity of an individual had opened several avenues
of investigation. The written text, at this point, became a validation of all the theoretical
constructs that the scientists in this field put forth. Literature was treated like a map of
the human psyche where a piece of writing was enough to excavate the thoughts that

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were buried deep in subconscious. In fact, the psychoanalysis of Hamlet by Sigmund
Freud can be cited as one of the best evidence and this substantiated the fact that the
human subconscious was a collection of traumatic suppressed memories.

In English literature, memory and imagination are considered to be quintessential

elements of literary composition by many writers and poets S.T. Coleridge found
memory in his poem ‘Domestic peace’ to be a “bosom spring of joy”; William
Wordsworth’s idea of poetic composition which involves the “recollection of powerful
emotions in tranquility” and Robert Browning’s intentional use of dramatic monologue
used memory as a vital tool of shaping the narration. An equally intriguing factor
that can be fatal to this fantastical creative complex of memory is trauma. Trauma,
according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, ‘is an injury to a living tissue caused by
an extrinsic agent’. In the case of memory, trauma can be caused by any abrupt incident
or experience that disturbs the regular activities of the brain, which includes perception,
creation and the retrieval of memory. Psychiatric treatments endorses on writing as
it proves to be an effective means of restoring thought processes of those who are in
the early and mid-stages of depression or anxiety. The practice of deeply meditative
elements in narration from the profound depths of the writers mind was nothing new to
the literary scene as writers like Samuel Richardson, Thomas Hardy, Emily Bronte had
employed it effectively, not deliberately in their writing. Literature, for the first time,
was used intentionally as a medium of reflection by confessional poets like Sylvia Plath,
Adrienne Riche, Amy Lowell as they remembered, relived and relieved their traumatic
past through their writing. The novel, The Great Gatsby can be cited as one of the finest
examples in this context, as the entire narrative is produced by Nick Caraway, a patient
who is supposedly suffering from depression.

The early twentieth century was pervaded by war, which traumatized many cultures
and discourse on existential crises, nostalgia, dysfunctional social strata and longing
for a restoration of human relationships became an inevitable to literary composition.
At this point, literature became a spectacle of humanity that was emotionally bruised,
culturally shook and socially scarred. This culminated in the establishment of trauma
studies which explored the impact of hideous conditions that are produced from family,
society or any immediate environment on the psyche of individuals. This thesis
proposes to explore the nuances of written narratives which aided writers to heal from
trauma by analyzing it through spatial frameworks.

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1.2 Memory

The process of forming a memory involves encoding, storing, retaining, and

subsequently recalling information and past experience. Memory helps an individual
to strengthen their reasoning, perception, problem solving, decision making. Memory
shapes the person’s conceptualization of self and society. Memory is a diverse set of
cognitive capabilities that is involved in processing vast amounts of information such
as images, sounds or meaning. Altogether the term memory can be comprehensively
understood as a recorder of our past experience which is very much essential to perceive
our present. It reminds the information and regulates one in participating in the present.

Literature and memory are interconnected. The history and the stories of the past
are passed through generations through the use of memory. Beginning from the oral
tradition, stories and cultures were passed through generation by using memory. There
are still communities that do not possess writing in their language, but orally the
tradition and culture is passed using the memory. There is a recollection of the past that
happens in the literature using the memory. Cultural memory is the representation of a
particular incident manifested in the minds of a group of individuals as a strong memory.
Partition narratives of countries like India and Istanbul, Holocaust narratives and other
narratives of ethnic cleansing which had occurred over a period of time leaving an
everlasting imprint on the minds of a particular community can be recalled as best
examples of such studies. They are highly traumatic in nature and often rise on the
basis of politics, race and issues relating to borders and acquisition of power and wealth
through the exploitation of a minority group.

The term memoire collective was first used by the French sociologist Maurice
Hawlbachs in his essay Les cadressociaux de la mmoire in 1925 which was later
translated into The Frameworks of Social Memory in 1992. He was the first scientist
to point out that memory was a product that was highly dependent on social structures.
This was opposed to that of Sigmund Freud and Henri Bergson who considered that
memory to be an individual’s possession. He outlined three major theories which would
affect the discipline of memory studies which would develop in the beginning of the
21st century at large. He found that memory was not a single entity; the formation
of memory, especially that of an individual’s heavily depended on the culture of the
individual. Thirdly, this dependency on the cultural frameworks was responsible for the
formation of an individual’s perception, it presents experiences and the understanding
of the cultural past. In this context, when a writer, who already bears the scars of a
communal trauma will obviously carry those signs through his writings. The works of
such writer will carry the first-hand accounts of incidents, minor and major portrayal of

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characters which have autobiographical underpinnings and even description of places
and events which are blocked from the public eye through an overarching narrative of
nationalism. Writers like BapsiSidhwa, Kushwanth Singh, Fyodor Dostevesky, Zadie
Smith, NgugiWaThiongo proved to have mastered this art. Their works aim to herald
the counter rhetoric of their cultural past. However, only a few writers have written
with the aim of cultural traumatic healing, which is the pivotal idea of the current
study. Regional writers often give a view of the micro aggression which are undergone
by communities that are almost invisible on a global view although the sufferings
undergone by such groups equally heart wrenching and unheard. Narrative as a means
of healing personal and communal trauma are handled at their best by such writers
because, writing to them is neither an act of resistance nor a form of exhibitionism of
their traumatic cultural past. Instead it is personal and written in order to create an
identity that has been scared and stolen.

1.3 Trauma

The word TRAUMA is used to designate experiences that are emotionally painful and
distressing where peoples ability to cope is limited and leaving them helpless. Trauma
has sometimes been defined in the realm of normal human experience. Judith Herman
describes that traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but
rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations of life (Herman 1992,
p.2) Trauma is a reaction to awful event such as war, abuse, poverty and abduction of
one’s habitat. Trauma is caused by a negative event that causes a lasting impact on the
victim’s mental and emotional stability. The effect can be so severe that they interfere
with an individual’s ability to live a normal life. Many sources of trauma are physically
violent in nature, others are psychological. Some common sources of trauma include
rape, national disaster, severe illness or injury, the death of loved ones, etc.

Trauma can be defined as an emotional response to a deeply distressing event or

experience. Cathy Caruth explains trauma as an unsolvable problem of the uncon-
sciousness that illuminates the inherent contradictions of experience and language. She
quotes that ‘If Freud turns to literature to describe traumatic experience, it is because
literature like psychoanalysis, is interested in the complex relation between knowing and
not knowing intersect that the psychoanalytic theory of traumatic experience and the
language of literature meet’. As a result, trauma reflects most of the time as depressed
and ignored feelings.

It also impacts the life of an individual to a greater extent. The events which
cause trauma include physical or mental abuse, unprecedented natural disasters,

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communal violence and bullying are considered to be the common sources of
trauma. American Psychological Association (APA) cites erratic behavior, strained
relationships, abnormal cognitive functions and social aloofness to be the common
symptoms of a traumatized person. Trauma is not a disease but it can be resolved
by seeking proper medical aid. Exposure therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and
Talk Therapy are the commonly resorted treatments for resolving traumatic conditions.
Trauma tends to shape and change the life of an individual into a new one. Every person
at some stage undergoes a rough space in their life; not every bad experience becomes
a trauma but the inability to withstand the encounter becomes a trauma. It is the result
of a violent shock or a wound but it affects the whole human psyche. An identity is
shattered during the experience and it sometimes reflects in the change of behavior in
an individual self. Identity is lost during the incident and trauma forms a different
identity.

A traumatic incident is an occurrence that causes physiological, mental, psycholog-

ical, or other injury or suffering. It is characterized by a sense of horror, helplessness,
injury or death. A traumatic incident is regarded as a danger to one’s security or
integrity, and it is felt as such. Traumatic events affect those who have been directly
affected by suffering injuries or loss. They can also affect people indirectly, those
who have witnessed the events. Additionally, rescue workers, friends, and relatives
of victims who have been involved may also be impacted by the traumatic event as
secondary survivors. Traumatic event impacts the psychological, behavioral, social,
spiritual state of wellness.

Trauma is a highly stressful event. The traumatic events results in psychological

trauma which tends to affect the individual emotionally, psychologically and also
cognitively. The result of pain, fear, betrayal, or sudden unexpected happenings like
accidents, death, and natural calamity ends up a human into the state of trauma. Jon
G Allen, author of Coping with Trauma: A Guide to Self-understanding (1995) defines
the experience of trauma as subjective and objective. Most of the time trauma is caused
by humans, a single shocking incident like rape or repeated abuse such as domestic
violence, or childhood abuse or pain that creates an impact on grownups. Unpredictable
events result in the stress and long term stress reflects badly on the mental health issues
and the person affected by it can be seen with the change in behavior, hyper-vigilant
and characteristics of avoidance. As a result, the experience of trauma becomes a threat
to life. The connection between literature and trauma cannot be separated. There is a
strong bond between trauma and literature as there is room for feelings, thoughts and
emotions in the realm of literature. Right from the early stage of writing, stories are cast
out in terms of pain and emotion. The result of trauma leads to the Post Traumatic Stress

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Disorder. The following types of trauma are deeply focused in the current research:

1.3.1 Historical Trauma

This type of trauma is usually found in the war-affected areas. The end of war does not
stop the action, but the result of those war ends as pain and the continuous reactions can
be seen in the people living in those areas. Children who are exposed to these violent
actions result from carrying the pain in them for a long period. There is a loss of lives
and homes which sometimes result in a generation of people to carry those burdens even
after the end of the war. Migration happens; there is a relocation of places and events
that result in refugees who are mostly affected mentally and physically. This type of
terrorism carried out by either the individual or group for political or social cause results
both in the physical and the psychological damage of the individual. Exposure to deaths
and the threat of life is very common and witnessing those horrible events becomes the
cause of trauma. Community violence as a result of two communities fighting also
causes trauma.

It is the collective, intergenerational feeling of psychological and emotional harm

in communities and generations. It causes chaos, and the consequences can be visible
even after many years have passed. . They also bear a general loss of meaning and a
sense of hope. There is an internalized oppression and self-hatred.

1.3.2 Medical Trauma

Medical trauma is a result of patients who suffer from the pain of the disease. Medical
trauma is defined as a type of trauma that occurs as a result of direct contact with a
medical setting and develops as a result of a complex interaction between the client,
hospital professionals, clinical environment, and the procedural experience, which can
have significant emotional effects due to the person’s specific analysis of the incident.
Sometimes the fear of death also causes trauma, and its results in the person leads to
a life full of fear and anxiety. The children who were exposed to pain, surgery in the
early stage also possess the impacts of trauma.

1.3.3 Natural Disasters

Natural Disasters such as Tsunami, earthquake, floods, etc. may result in the loss of
life and homes. The most common and immediate reaction to a disaster is shock, which
appears as numbness or denial at first. An overemotional condition characterised by
high degrees of fear, guilt, or despair can result from shock. People may have lost
family members or their houses and it reflects in the wellbeing of an individual. These
cause a major trauma in the minds of people, who have lost their closed ones, and there

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is a possibility to be forced to start a whole new life and this may result in pain and
trauma.

1.3.4 Sexual Assault

Sexual assault and rape are modern wars that women fight every day. There is a rapid
growth in terms of crimes committed against women and the voices of those women
are often silenced. It sometimes is seen as a shame to come out and accept the part of
violence that has happened.

A woman who has undergone those trouble makes an absolute shift in their life.
Sexual unwilling action against any individual may result in a long lasting effect. Being
part of such horrible incidents, creates a huge traumatic experience and bearing it
without even sharing with others creates more havoc in the life of the women. Rape
happened during childhood may have huge impact on the child when she grows up.
The rise in the wave of feminism has given a space for the women to come out and
testify those pain and shift the shame towards the men who were responsible for it.
Many times women were threatened after the rape not to utter a word about it and this
happens a lot with the child victims and it leaves an adverse effect on the child growing
up

1.3.5 Childhood Trauma

Childhood trauma is a serious impact that lasts in the child either by being part of it or
even by witnessing it. Sandra L bloom in her paper ‘Trauma theory abbreviated’ states,
“Children are traumatized whenever they fear for their lives or for the lives of someone
they love.” It alters the whole concept of the meaning of life; the trauma in childhood
challenges the way they think, the way they learn and the way they remember and feel
about themselves. A traumatic experience alters the way the child makes sense of the
world. Any child that undergoes a shocking incident like rape or growing up in a war
zone or witnessing the horrific incidents tends to create a huge impact in the minds and
the memory of those incidents tends to disturb them as flashbacks while growing up.
Childhood trauma needs timely counselling and creating a trusting environment plays a
vital role in bringing up the child who has witnessed or undergone various shocking or
disturbing events.

1.4 Trauma Studies: A Brief History

The primary concerns of the field of trauma studies is the representation of memory,
trauma and culture and its impact on shaping the identity ranging from an individual

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to an entire culture in literature. Theories in psychoanalysis form the bedrock of
this study and other theories including poststructuralist, postcolonial and sociological
theories have served as effective frames of extending this study. Trauma studies mainly
focus on the effect of extreme experiences that are capable of destroying the mental and
physical well-being of an individual. The need to comprehend traumatic narratives in
literature proved to be significant after the discovery of the power of narrative in shaping
the human mind. Trauma Studies is a culminative field of a century long study in
clinical psychology, sociology and psychoanalysis. A holistic understanding of trauma
studies can be achieved only by accounting the tangibility in the development of clinical
theories and treatments as a response to the social turmoil that was mainly caused by
war.

Discussions about trauma began in as early as the last decade of the nineteenth
century by Pierre Janet, Jean Martin Charcot, Morton Prince and Joseph Breuer who
made significant contributions to this field of psychology before Sigmund Freud. Jean
Martin Charcot, a French neurologist of the late nineteenth century was a pioneer in the
field of trauma studies as he was the very first person to associate trauma with mental
illness. Until then, hysteria which was most commonly found in women was thought
to originate from the uterus and the hysterectomy was the most resorted treatment.
Women suffered from sensory loss, amnesia, palpitations and bouts of anxiety. Charcot
found that physiological stimuli caused trauma; the stimuli include physical and mental
abuse including that have been tolerated for long periods of time. He conducted
live demonstrations of hypnotic treatment where patients were able to remember and
repeat the traumatic event. Studies in the dissociative nature of memory in traumatized
individuals was carried forward by his student Pierre Janet. He explored the effect of
trauma in the development of personality and its effect in behavior in his patients. He
found that the symptoms of traumatized patients could be alleviated when they were
exposed to the memories of the incident that caused trauma.

The idea of trauma was first discussed by Sigmund Freud in two works which
include Beyond the Pleasure Principal (1920) and Studies in Hysteria (1895) which
he wrote in collaboration with Breuer. They agreed that it was not just the incident
that caused trauma but the act of remembering that heightened it. Sigmund Freud
identified dreams to be the agent through which the patient remembers the incident. In
his words “dreams...it continually takes the patient back to the situation of his disaster,
from which he awakens in renewed terror ((Freud 1922), pg 8) Breuer found that the
effects not only manifested in the form of dreams but also in situations which contained
external emotional triggers. He found that hysterics mainly suffered from reminiscences
and called it “pathogenic reminiscence”. Although Freud neglected the topic, it was

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carefully scrutinized by theorists like Jacques Derrida and Lacan in defining the position
of women in critical studies.

Based on these studies Sigmund Freud used the term “hypnoid hysteria” along with
his collaborator Breuer to establish the relationship between the external stimuli and its
psychological impact. It linked the extremity of the experience to stifle the ability to
narrate or represent it. Freudian theories asserted that trauma is unrepersentable; this
was disproved by developing several models where it was found that this inability to
spell out the cause of trauma was just one among the many implications that it had on
an individual.

The two world wars, the holocaust, concentration camps left people shattered and
psychiatry, at this time became an active field where doctors recognized illness such
as shell shock, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety that
were caused emotional and mental strain due to unforeseen incidents. Treatments
included psychoanalysis, hypnosis and administration of drugs to soldiers who suffered
from traumatic disorders as they were exposed to the horrors of war. Such treatments
were not meant for long term recovery, instead, it merely provided a short relapse and
soldiers returned to the warfront as soon as possible. Abraham Kardiner, is worth
mentioning at this point as he began treating traumatized soldiers after deployment
from 1920. He agreed with his predecessors Freud and Janet on the reliving of the
traumatic experience through remembrance as he remarked “the subject acts as if the
original traumatic situation were still in existence and engages in protective devices
which failed on the original occasion”. Kardiner was very sympathetic in his approach
as he did not blame the patients for the lack of morale but clarified that the human mind
is susceptible to change when exposed to any brutal situation, especially war. Unlike the
previous hypnotic method, where patients were treated separately in isolation, Kardiner
implemented group therapy. He also found that any kind of treatment in psychiatry was
futile without regular and periodical examination.

Treatment of chronically traumatized patients, especially the survivors of concentra-

tion camps, was studied by the psychoanalyst Henry Crystal. He found that traumatized
patients come to experience emotional reactions merely as somatic states, without being
able to interpret the meaning of what they are feeling. He found that people who were
traumatized for a prolonged period of time lacked the capacity to express themselves,
dream, relate and narrate their experiences. This was due to their inability to contain
and over process their experiences in the past.

Apart from patients from the war, treatment for civilians who suffered from trauma

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took a serious turn after a nightclub burnt down at Boston in 1942. Dr. Lindemann who
treated the survivors of this incident, found that the people reacted and experienced
trauma in a similar fashion which led to investigations in grief reactions.

The nature of trauma is such that it cannot be verbalized; expression, irrespective of

the form (through speech or writing) can be a very demanding task. In the literary
scene, where writing is a predominant mode of expression, the non-communicable
nature of trauma was challenged. Inquiries on trauma in narratives can be traced back
to the sixties which bore the cruelties of the Vietnam War, violence against women
and children and the aftermath of the Holocaust survivors and the psychological impact
it left on an entire generation. A literary inquiry of trauma gained popularity during
the early nineties with the boom of postcolonial narratives which dealt with themes of
violence, identity and marginalization which were akin to the nature of trauma itself.
The long silence imposed by trauma formed the first wave of trauma theory and it
was commemorated with the launch of Unclaimed Experiences: Trauma, Narrative
and History in 1996 by Cathy Caruth, a renowned scholar of trauma studies. The
first wave of Trauma Studies emphasized on the individual experiences and the effects
of trauma such as fragmentation, loss of self and existential crises due to personal
experiences. The second wave of trauma studies which began in the early 2000s was
the polar opposite of the first wave. It focused on destructive events whose ontological
connections involve race, politics and gender related issues inflicted on the masses. In
such cases the experience of trauma moves from a personal level to a social level.

1.5 Literature and Trauma

Literature defines life and it displays human emotions and feelings and it gives the
space for the person to share the discourse and record it. Traumatic events damages or
destroys the whole identity of an individual and its narration helps to rebuild it. The
literature becomes one of the ways to record and reflect on the memories, flashbacks
and fears that are shadowed by trauma. The literature produced during and about wars
deals in depth about the impact of trauma undergone by the generation. Experience
and emotions connect the literature and trauma, which makes the readers relate and
comprehend the characters of the literature with themselves. Trauma literature is built
upon the pain and memory of the experience that happened during the incident or action
but it gives a space for the readers to reflect and relate through the discourse of the
literature. Writers who decode traumatic experiences in their stories tend to sketch out
the intricacies of the internal and external conflict that an individual undergoes in such
tumultuous situations. Some writers even project their own experiences in such projects
in order to expose the crud reality of traumatic events.

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 The people affected by trauma face severe mental health issues; they may be
unaware of it and even be stigmatized for their abnormal behavior. Trauma literature
helps people to reflect on the memories and understand its core. Memory recollection
plays a vital role in the understanding of the trauma; hence memory and trauma are
interrelated in the phase of trauma literature. An identity is completely distorted as a
result of trauma and during the process of writing it, the trauma literature is capable of
restoring lost identity. Therefore, transformation and reconstruction of an individual is
possible in the act of consuming or producing trauma literature.

Writing is key to record and reverberate on the past and to the present. It helps
to decode the happening and to come out with various stories in the form of epic,
drama, novels and poems. The expression makes it an experience to share with others.
Narration, in trauma literature, becomes a crucial part of the life of a writer, because it
allows the individual to share the pain and to bring out the understanding of the problem
to light. Culture, events and histories are passed from generation to generation through
narratives. Narratives give a personal and social identity. Some narratives not only
express but also give meaningful value to their identity. The rise in psychology around
the 19th century and its related narratives helped to understand human behavior in a
deeper sense. Psychologists used narrative to understand the individual and sometimes
to understand the whole society. The narrative of the individual also helps in giving
the right aid to the individual by listening to their complete stories. Narrative therapy
is based on the facts stated in an individuals narrative and this helps the psychologists
to understand the complete nature of the person and to give the patient the needed
solution. Narratives in the trauma literature revolve around the writings of the author,
who share the pain and memory of the various phases of the violence and shock that the
individual has undergone. Writing becomes the therapy for the writer and also to the
reader. Literature as an art acts as a therapy to share and express and to comprehend the
values of life.

The practice of using writing as a standard form of therapy was introduced by James
Pennebake, American Psychologist. In the mid-90s he found that patients who suffered
from conditions ranging from PTSD to hysteria were introduced to expressive writing
and there were significant improvements in the competence of the patients. Expressive
writing is a process where a patient penned down one’s personal experience, especially
that relating to trauma irrespective of structure or grammar. This was undertaken to
uncover the beginnings and analyze the effects of trauma on the patient’s psyche. The
other results which were acquired through such study were an improved sense of self,
a collected nature and the possibility of creating a meaningful relationship with oneself

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and their respective peers

The allusions to narrative therapy is common in literature. For example the novel
Great Gatsby, is a fictional portrayal of Nick Carraways experiences of American
modernity in the form of narrative therapy. Writers like Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson,
Virginia Woolf, Amy Lowell, and Franz Kafka have all resorted to writing as a form of
catharsis and self-reflection. They have expressed their innermost thoughts and feelings,
irrespective of a public reaction in their woks. In fact, writings of Franz Kafka, were
posthumously published, contain vivid descriptions of his strained relationship with his
father. The Wasteland by TS Eliot, a landmark text in the study of literature was written
during a time when he was diagnosed with depression. However, a conscious practice of
writing for the purpose of healing gained prominence with the introduction of memory
studies during the beginning of the twentieth century. This was done by analyzing first
hand narratives (spoken and written) from the victims themselves or from life narratives
such as autobiographies, diaries and letters.

The purpose of the research is to find the benefits of writing and its value towards
healing the traumatic pain. Trauma is the most contested phenomenon in the current
age. The graph of trauma is very intense. At the beginning, it was termed to address
the physical injury or a wound. The recent phenomenon is much bigger than its origin,
it almost goes with all the branch of studies including medicine, psychology, sociology,
economics, humanities etc. Psychologists from the 19th century have worked on trauma
and found out its association as more mental related than physical, since then the shift
towards trauma has happened towards understanding it mentally and now it is viewed
more in the light of psychology. The current century has witnessed two major world
wars and it has resulted in turning the major focus on the trauma.

The present study views trauma from the point of the need to express it. The
study analyses the individuals as well as the community that witnessed and bear the
trauma and its post effects. The writers of those traumas with pain and the purpose of
expression is analysed with the help of the ‘third space theory’. The concept of ‘third
space’ is used by the scholars like Edward Soja and Homi K Bhabha, and the current
research adapts the concept of third space to bring out the importance of having ‘writing
the pain’ for creating a safe psychological home in their minds’. This study particularly
focuses on the process of expression as therapy and the need for expressing trauma and
the effects are analyzed in this study.

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1.6 Objectives of the Study

This research strive to understand how traumatic person is restored from traumatization
by the process of writing the pain and the following objectives were framed to meet the
above need.

• To explore how artistic expression helps to bring out the identity construction.

• To signify the role of writing and narration in personal healing.

• To investigate and record the therapeutic values of writing the pain in the context
of personal, collective and sociological frames.

• To study the impact of trauma in individual life.

1.7 Chapterization

There are seven chapters of this thesis. The first chapter provides a concise overview
of trauma, recollection, and its relationship to literature. It gives a comprehensive
view of trauma narratives and the human psychology that underpins trauma. The
researcher explores the various forms of trauma and how traumatic experiences can
lead to interpersonal trauma, which can impair an individual’s physical, psychological,
and cognitive well-being. Pain, anxiety, betrayal of confidence, or unusual events such
as injuries, death, or natural calamity put a person in a state of trauma, and all other
factors were addressed. The first chapter also sums up the purpose of the study and its
objectives.

The second chapter is devoted to a survey of related literature for the study. It
explores the stressful circumstances the characters encountered and their effects on
them, as well as presenting the pain and the suffering of the afflicted personality, by
analysing the texts of the authors. It also emphasizes the impact of memories and how
important they are in forming a person’s personal identity. In general, recollection is
very significant in trauma since the victim is always plagued by memories from the
past. Trauma will resurface in the form of multiple events, individuals, objects, and
memories that linger in a person’s mind and haunt him. The trauma and the concept of
third space are explored in the third chapter. It shows how trauma affects individuals. It
also considers how trauma affects people’s socio-psychological behaviour. The Third
Space Theory’ and its many connections are discussed in this chapter.

In relation to the novel Push, the fourth chapter links the concepts of First Space,
Second Space, and Third Space. It investigates how various forms of spaces give

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meaning to one’s creation. Via the character Precious and the effects of childhood
trauma, it also tries to understand the concept of Third Space as writing.

The fifth chapter examines the importance of a person’s interaction with society in
relation to the idea of home and society. It examines Malaika Amar Shaik’s memoir I
Have to Destroy Myself and her use of the third space metaphor to find meaning in her
life. It also depicts how, through the medium of prose, she overcomes her ambivalent
and insecure state of self. The next section of the chapter delves into the memoir Life
Less Ordinary in depth and explores the idea of third space writing as a means of healing
trauma. It defines the Grief Model and the Cycle of Abuse in order to comprehend Baby
Halder’s life as a survivor and her journey of healing by writing. It also looks at the
writing process from the standpoint of healing.

The sixth chapter examines Tenzin Tsundue’s life and times through his poetry.
It also tackles the problems of Tibetan refugees and explores one of the big global
challenges, the Refugee Crisis. It also discusses how one’s identity, place, and area all
play a role in one’s life. It also emphasizes Tsundue’s strong voice against subjugation
and suppression of Tibet’s limited independence. The importance of writing as an
instrument in the construction of the lost identity.

The seventh and final chapter, serves the conclusion of the thesis explicating the
research hypothesis from the standpoint of literature. Through the transformation of
hard reality into literature, each writer adopts the power of writing their trauma to
re-create history and make the history part of a common past. The genre of trauma
studies, passes through the lens of literature which transforms and produces a colorful
continuum of life stories.

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