Negotiating The Mahabharata as a Trauma Narrative (Published)
The great Indian epic, The Mahabharata inspires us to navigate through the height of joy on winning a battle or a kingdom and the depth of sorrow over loss of life, property and so on. The characters witness the prognosis of their distressing and disturbing lives having immense psychological ramifications. In this research, The Mahabharata will be discussed in the light of various trauma features expounded by Vickroy (2002), Skultans (2007), Arizti (2011) and Baelo-Allue (2012) to examine if the epic, being “a treatise on Artha, on Dharma, and on Kama” (Ganguli, 2006, p. 31), can fit into the scheme of trauma narrative. An in-depth analysis of the epic finds that its narrative accommodates most of the theme-based and technique-based trauma narrative features. Besides, the epic embodies trauma as one of its primary themes. Further, the narrative techniques, such as, hamartia, peripetia, tone, repetitive designation, amplification, flashforward and the use of long expressions, embedded in the narrative of the epic, but are not considered in trauma theories, are found representing the psychological trauma of the characters of the epic effectively, thus contribute to broaden the scope of trauma theories by adding new features.
Citation: Dharmapada Jena (2022) Negotiating The Mahabharata as a Trauma Narrative, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.3, pp.33-49
Keywords: Narrative turn of trauma, Negotiation., The Mahabharata, Trauma, Trauma narrative
The Complexities of Alienation, Otherness, and Marginalization in Miral Al-Tahawy’s Novel Brooklyn Heights (Published)
This paper is an attempt to bind the reader to the complexities of otherness and marginalization as trauma experienced by the protagonist and other immigrants in the America depicted in Brooklyn Heights[i]. In all of their complexities and nuances that this paper seeks to explore and discuss these concepts, otherness, alienation, and marginalization, in light of Homi Bhahba’s concept of otherness and Daphne Grace’s theorization on the geographical senses of ‘belonging’ or ‘dislocation’. As such, since Al-Tahawy’s narrative focuses on spaces of otherness and marginalization, this paper aims to reveal how the novelist tends towards the deeply personal, and creates interesting transnational connections through a wide cast of multi-racial immigrants and refugees. The paper further exposes how Al-Tahawy, through her compelling and masterful style, captures the confusions and conflicts of marginalized immigrants and how otherness and marginalization, as experiences of social and psychological disjunction, lead to cultural alienation in America; how attempts at assimilation in a new host country even further highlight the sense of loss and alienation, especially if the immigration from the original home country takes as a result of a traumatic event; and whether or not assimilation necessarily nullifies one’s ethnicity or means total disappearance or “dissolving” into the mainstream.
Citation: Farouq Rezq Bekhit Sayyid (2022) The Complexities of Alienation, Otherness, and Marginalization in Miral Al-Tahawy’s Novel Brooklyn Heights, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.3, pp.1-15
Keywords: Acculturation, Assimilation, Otherness, Trauma, al-tahawy, brooklyn heights, marginalization
Kamila Shamsie’s Novel “Burnt Shadows”: A Discourse of Traumatic Displacement (Published)
Kamila Shamsie, a Pakistani English fiction writer in her epic novel, Burnt Shadows (2009), covers more than half a century, from fatal day of atomic bombing on 9th August 1945 at Nagasaki in World War II to the 9/11/ 2001 attack on World Trade Centre and the post-9/11 world. This study explores the traumatic displacement of innocent humans because of the major historical events caused by the world power politics. A Series of traumatic displacement is presented through the stories of two families which consist of individuals of various nationalities and a number of cross-cultural relationships. Norman Fairclough’s (1995) interpretative framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has been used to uncover the traumatic impacts of the misuse of power which according to Van Dijk(1990) is the most prominent theme of CDA. Postcolonial context of the writer and the text and inherent ideology and power relations embedded in the text have been explored. The outcome of this academic discussion provides a tapestry of emotional, psychological and social challenges caused by traumatic displacement and the enormity of damage it causes in the life of the poor victims.
Keywords: Displacement, Postcolonialism, Power Politics, Trauma
Sexual, Textual and Traumatic subjectivity: August Strindberg representation of class and sexual conflict in Miss Julie (Review Completed - Accepted)
This paper aims at understanding the importance of sexuality and the ways in which sexuality is accorded central status in an attempt to understand human relations, pleasure and satisfaction, sexual subject in culture, to reveal varying degrees of trepidation and anxiety about the ambiguities of sexuality i.e androgyny represents the resolution of the anxieties and tensions of sexual difference in favor of complementarity. In terms of class and gender this paper explores the patriarchal and misogynistic frameworks in which gender and sex were constructed in late 19th century and early 20th century; and how class and power mean mean that, that sexual never signifies in social isolation i.e power comes into play in the machinery of production, in families, limited groups and institutions. In terms of traumatic theory, this paper will see at how sexual trauma takes form of a psychological and ontological angst after reaching sexual maturity.
Keywords: Androgyny, Misogyny, Power, Sexuality, Subjectivity, Trauma