Dialogue: A Journal Devoted to Literary Appreciation

Flashback as Resistance: Traumatic Memory Beyond Catharsis

2025-11-19T06:16:41+00:00

This article explores the function of flashbacks in trauma narratives not as therapeutic tools leading to closure or catharsis, but as potent acts of resistance. Using Desha Kala Patra by Jagannath Prasad Das, a groundbreaking work in Odia literature that skillfully combines personal and collective memories, the paper looks at how broken memories mess up the flow of time and deny the end of healing. Here, memory is not just a place to heal; it's also a place to face the past, where the things that can't be said come back to life in the present. This study goes against the grain of traditional psychoanalytic frameworks that look for resolution through expression. Instead, it uses postcolonial and affect theory to say that flashbacks show histories that have been silenced and show a politics of incompletion and narrative rupture. These returns that happen over and over again are emotional protests against forgetting, erasing history, and the clean arc of redemption. The article shows how the flashback, through its repetition and disorientation, becomes a formal strategy of survival and subversion by making readers stay in the discomfort of memory instead of escaping it. In this way, it takes back trauma as a place not of closure but of ongoing resistance.

The Blitz of Trauma in Heart Lamp: Interrogations of the Ages

2025-11-19T06:21:30+00:00

Trauma is a psychological index of one's mental make-up and physical infliction leading to final catastrophe of individual. It has been available in the world of literature right from its inception in different forms. Sometimes, it is in the form of a defective social structure, sometimes it is in the form of gender disparity, sometimes it is termed as racial discrimination, sometimes based on language, region, religion, etc. – but, all the time it is self-created – a man-made disaster. In the novel Heart Lamp Banu Mustaq dwells on the Muslim society, especially the Muslim woman. Crusade for the cause of women has been a subject of deliberation for the intellectuals and the custodians of the society: Banu Mustaq stands in the same row, with her Heart Lamp, the winner of the International Booker Prize, 2025, with her twelve stories, originally written in Kannad, and translated into English by Deepa Bhasthi. Each story speaks volumes, centered on the predicament of the Muslim women: in different phases of her life – in the name of religion, culture, social obligation, and other prevalent prescriptions of life. It is the voice of the marginalized section of the society, usually termed as the other, the weaker, the subaltern, the disempowered, the excluded, the belittled, the ostracized, etc. Such concern has been identified differently by litterateur: as gender issue, as patriarchal mess, as power imbalance, as intersectionality, as thwarted rebellion, as identity contest, etc. This paper intends to establish the need to demolish the perception regarding women in general and that of Muslim in particular, projecting the present, with a mission to have a better morrow, of a balanced social structure of sane and rational equations

Analysing Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines Through the Lens of Cultural Trauma

2025-11-19T06:25:16+00:00

Winner of the 1989 Sahitya Akademi Award, Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines is about partition and also its aftermath. It is the story of the unnamed protagonist's coming to terms with the death of his muchloved uncle Tridib in a communal riot in Dhaka when he was a child, and trying to make sense of and understand the cause of his death years later when he is an adult. Trauma for Cathy Caruth is a belated experience. It often has a lingering, disruptive presence in memory. Dominick LaCapra offers his concepts of “acting out” and “working through” to decode trauma. Marianne Hirsch's concept of “Postmemory” describes the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective and cultural trauma of those who come before. These experiences are transmitted so deeply and affectively that they continue to have their continuing effect into the present also. My paper makes a humble attempt to read the novel in the light of the cultural trauma that the unnamed protagonist went through because of his uncle's death.

Trauma in Ancient Indian Literature: A Case Study of Sita in the Ramayana

2025-11-19T06:28:28+00:00

This paper examines trauma in ancient Indian literature through a comparative analysis of Sita in Valmiki's Ramayana (c. 500 BCE–100 CE), Draupadi in the Mahabharata (c. 400 BCE–400 CE), and Lakshmi in Puranic texts like the Vishnu Purana. Sita's gendered trauma—exile, abduction, public shaming, and abandonment—reflects patriarchal norms of the Second Urbanization, framed by dharma and resolved through cosmic transcendence. Draupadi's public trauma, marked by disrobing, exile, and war's devastation, challenges dharma, driving collective justice in a morally complex society. Lakshmi, as a divine figure, experiences symbolic cosmic disruptions, not human suffering, highlighting her role in restoring prosperity. Applying trauma studies, the paper reveals universal patterns (silence, repetition) and culturally specific responses (karma, dharma), with Sita's prolonged, internalized suffering contrasting Draupadi's assertive agency and Lakshmi's divine autonomy. These narratives bridge ancient wisdom and modern inquiry, illuminating gendered suffering and resilience.

Testimonies of the Oppressed: Memory, Trauma, and Resistance in Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan

2025-11-19T06:31:02+00:00

This paper explores the intertwined themes of memory, trauma, and healing within Indian literary narratives, with a particular focus on Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan, a seminal work of Dalit literature in Hindi and later translated into English. Joothan recounts Valmiki's memory that is experience of caste-based discrimination, offering a poignant reflection on the collective trauma endured by Dalits in India. This paper examines how the autobiographical novel captures both personal and community memories of caste oppression, shedding light on the profound emotional and psychological scars these experiences leave behind. It also addresses the narrative's exploration of trauma, both at individual level and at communality level, and the slow process of healing through writing and resistance. By placing Joothan in context with theories of trauma and memory, this paper highlights how Valmiki uses literature as a medium of healing, offering a voice to the silenced and paving a path toward social justice. The paper will also draw connections between Valmiki's narrative and broader Dalit literary traditions that engage with themes of trauma and resilience, exploring the cultural and socio-political contexts that shape these narratives. Through this analysis, the paper aims to demonstrate the crucial role of memory and storytelling in both documenting trauma and fostering healing within marginalized Dalit communities in India.

Representations of Trauma in Booker Prize-Winning Fiction: A Comparative Study of Shuggie Bain, The Promise, and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

2025-11-19T07:38:07+00:00

The paper explores a comparative analysis of trauma in all the three Booker Prize winning novels from 2020-2022- Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, The Promise by Damon Galgut, and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. These novels have employed various narrative approaches, the present paper reflects personal, familial, socio- political pain and struggles. All the three novels are connected to their own special cultural and historical backgrounds — 1980s Glasgow, apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, and conflict-affected Sri Lanka. From the viewpoint of trauma theory and literary analysis, this study examines how these novels express experiences of pain and suffering, and also seeking instances of resilience and hope. It also thinks about the responsibility of literature to present trauma carefully and meaningfully. The research poses significant questions about what deserves to be voiced, what should be left unsaid, and how narratives assist us in recalling past wounds, making sense of them, and gathering the strength to challenge the world we live in.

Embodied Trauma and Gendered Memory: Representations of Violence Against Women in Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

2025-11-19T07:53:00+00:00

This paper explores the representation of embodied trauma and gendered memory in Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, focusing on the protagonist Tequila Leila's experiences of sexual violence, familial betrayal, and societal exclusion. The novel constructs a posthumous narrative that preserves the sensory and psychological imprints of trauma within a gendered body, foregrounding memory as both individual testimony and collective resistance. Shafak challenges patriarchal silencing by granting narrative agency to a marginalised female voice, thus reconfiguring trauma as a space of witness and reclamation. Through its fragmented temporality and affective realism, the text interrogates the socio-cultural mechanisms that perpetuate violence against women, ultimately affirming the ethical power of storytelling in confronting gendered histories of pain.

Testimonies of the Unspeakable: Tracing Sexual Violence, PTSD and Invisible Wounds in Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life

2025-11-19T07:42:57+00:00

In recent decades, contemporary fiction has increasingly become a site for bearing witness to forms of violence that defy easy narration. This paper explores how Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life (2015) grapples with the representation of sexual violence, its lingering psychic aftermath and the invisible wounds that shape survivors' lives long after the traumatic event. Drawing on trauma theory, particularly the work of Cathy Caruth, Judith Herman and Shoshana Felman, this study examines how the novel foregrounds the unspeakable dimensions of trauma through narrative voice, temporal disjunction and the interplay of speech and silence. A Little Life follows Jude St. Francis's lifelong struggle with PTSD and self-harm, laying bare the cyclical, non-linear nature of trauma and the ethical stakes of spectatorship. By reading the text in dialogue, this paper argues that the novel resists redemptive arcs and therapeutic resolutions, instead using narrative strategies to preserve trauma's irreducible residue. Ultimately, this study contends that such literature functions as a form of counter-memory, challenging readers to confront their complicity as witnesses and to acknowledge the fragile limits of empathy when encountering the unspeakable. The paper concludes by reflecting on the transformative yet unsettling possibilities of reading trauma narratives in an era of heightened awareness of sexual violence.

Depiction of Trauma in Film Adaptations of Select Shakespearean Plays – An Overview

2025-11-19T07:46:27+00:00

Literature and films have been effective and eloquent vehicles of expression to portray human values, sentiments, emotions and trauma. Genres of literature such as poetry, fiction and drama are widely used by creative artists to depict the problems of human existence and continue to please and instruct sensible and sensitive audience besides exploring life and its varied facets.Similarly,films too have been instrumental in presenting a plethora of life situations earning a significant place in the minds and hearts of the people.Films based on plays authored by creative genius,William Shakespeare,have enhanced the worth of the plays and the glory of the Bard in greater proportions. Shakespeare's plays especially tragedies offer great scope to comprehend human trauma caused by follies, misgivings, apprehensions, excessive contemplation, hatred, scepticism and greed. The present paper entitled Depiction of Trauma in Film Adaptations of Select Shakespearean Plays – An Overview makes a humble attempt to critique the manner in which trauma has been presented on the celluloid in select film adaptations of Shakespeare's tragedies Othello and Hamlet. Offate, trauma studies have gained sufficient critical attention making it a genuinely rich area of harvest to unearth newer dimensions and perspectives. The paper focuses on two films Haider and Omkara directed by Vishal Bharadwaj and his treatment of trauma and emotional intensity which made the films worth appreciating and critiquing.

Disrupted Selves and Displaced Histories: A Study of Trauma in Indian Literary Texts

2025-11-19T07:50:50+00:00

Trauma, as a multifaceted phenomenon, intersects psychology, culture, and history, and its literary articulation provides a powerful framework for understanding individual and collective suffering. In Indian literary discourse, trauma emerges not only as psychological aftermath but as a cultural memory transmitted across generations, shaped by socio- political upheavals like Partition, caste violence, communal riots, and gendered subjugation. The present paper explores trauma through the theoretical frameworks of Cathy Caruth, Dominick LaCapra, and Marianne Hirsch, focusing on how Indian literature gives voice to silenced histories and fragmented identities through the study of literary texts, such as, Saadat Hasan Manto's “Toba Tek Singh”, Bhisham Sahni's Tamas, Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan, Bama's Karukku, Mahasweta Devi's “Draupadi,” Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines.

Trauma, Memory, and Resistance: Exploring the Complexities of Human Suffering in Yvonne Vera's Works

2025-11-19T07:59:02+00:00

This research paper examines the portrayal of trauma in Yvonne Vera's works, analyzing how her characters navigate traumatic experiences and the impact of cultural and historical contexts on their lives. Through a close reading of Vera's novels, this paper highlights the complexities and nuances of human suffering, exploring the ways in which trauma shapes individual and collective experiences. By examining the intersections of trauma, memory, and resistance, this paper provides a nuanced understanding of the human experience and underscores the importance of empathy and understanding in the face of trauma.