Trauma

The present paper aims address the Lacanian concepts of the tyche (tuche) and the automaton in Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion (1987), and to explore the way the whole novel is based on moments of chance, peril, and jeopardy which are traceable in the transformation of automaton into tyche. Illuminating the track of automaton into tyche, the study endeavors to compare reading women’s writing style to experiencing tyche while going through other styles could be comparable to an automaton. A historiographic metafiction, The Passion is divided into four seemingly unrelated sections connected by the elements of chance and calamity. Via experiencing traumatic happenings, the characters face the incursion of the Real into the Symbolic Order (Tyche), considered beyond the determinations of the Symbolic. Observing the mass slaughter and deplorable death of his comrades, Henri is unable to return to the Symbolic and is obliged to remain in the asylum as a mentally disordered person. On the contrary, Villanelle manages to free herself from the post-traumatic stress and commences a new life.

Auster’s first novel The Invention of Solitude was significant, in that it not only catalogued his own experiences, but also provided one of the earliest examples of the psychological processes involved in trauma and memory storage. It demonstrates the self’s psychological use of the Ego, in a classical sense, to negotiate between emotional response and reality, in order to create meaning around a set of events. More specifically, the death of Auster’s father operates as a catalyst for the author’s journey of self-discovery, which is richly tied to the psychoanalytical principles of Freud and Lacan, and which ultimately allows him to fully appreciate his experience of loss, by supporting the wish fulfillment related to his relationship with his father, and his need to understand the rejection he perceives suffering as a child. This highlights the difference between the inner child’s ego-centric or narcissistic perception, and the adult’s ability to rationalize, especially as it relates to memory and unfulfilled need. Keywords: Paul Auster, psychoanalysis, trauma, memory, self-myth

Quel type de texte l’écriture du trauma génère-t-elle ? De source psychanalytique, le trauma survient dès lors que le sujet est confronté à une expérience douloureuse vécue individuellement ou collectivement et qui le hante continûment. Ainsi, il vit un déséquilibre psychique dont la principale manifestation est son incapacité à se maîtriser. Partant de ce postulat, l’article vise à montrer que, dans Notre vie dans les forêts de Marie Darrieussecq, le trauma prend forme dans l’environnement familial et social : disparition précoce de géniteurs, découverte inattendue de sœur clonée, attentats, accidents d’avion, prises en otage, canicule. Il met ensuite en lumière que ses effets sur le sujet narrant sont révélateurs d’une hybridité textuelle. L’auteure construit un texte qui se situe entre le témoignage et la dystopie. Il dévoile enfin l’existence d’une poétique scripturale empreinte essentiellement de nombreuses répétitions, d’éléments onomatopéiques et intertextuels, d’abondantes distorsions syntaxiques, signe d’une subversion de la langue.

This is a comparative study of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea and Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net . The main focus is on the role of trauma in the creation of unreliable narrators. Both Sartre and Murdoch have witnessed the horrors of World War II and it seems that their narratives are affected by such a terrible event. The characters look traumatized and suffer from the burden of the past which has never left them alone. In other words, past events have formed their identity and have rewritten their personality under the situation of World War II. Here, with the help of Wayne C. Booth’s theory of unreliable narrator, the narrators of the selected novels are scrutinized at the social and political contexts of the novels. Accordingly, considering this context and its consequent trauma, the research tries to reveal the presence and function of the unreliable narrators in the selected literary works.

The current paper aims at presenting a close reading of the protagonist’s reminiscences in Mohsen Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist in terms of an eclectic approach toward representation of trauma. Freud and Breuer’s theory of psychological trauma, Judith Herman’s concept of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Jeffery Alexander’s notion of cultural trauma are employed as the conceptual framework of this analysis. Psychological trauma refers to the unbearable, untreatable, and unspeakable psychological wounds remaining on the subject’s unconsciousness. PTSD concentrates on troublesomeness in regular physical activities including rapid distraction, insomnia, and shifting in and out through past memories, triggered by trauma. Cultural trauma traces the changes at the level of collective identity of a group due to a formerly experienced horrendous event. The Adventures of Changez, the novel’s narrator, dating back to around the 9/11 attack are represented in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The paper conducted a survey through theories of trauma depicting memory as a venue where the subject’s psychical status could be fully scrutinized. The results of the study demonstrated that a traumatic event such as that of the 9/11 has a long-term devastating impact on Changez’s subjectivity as well as a collective negative consequence for Pakistan’s new generation of intellectual immigrants.

Background: Instrumental ethical climate can affect human resources both physically and mentally in the workplace. This trauma may affect contextual performance or behavior of personnel. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of instrumental ethical climate on contextual performance of human resources in banks and financial institutions. Method: Research method was mixed. In qualitative section; Theme analysis and Delphi methods have been used. Statistical population was bank’s expert. The sample size included 11 people who were chosen purposefully and then interviewed by a semi-structured questionnaire. The correlational descriptive method was used for quantitative section. The statistical population consisted of bank’s staff and the sample was 384 people based on Morgan table, who were selected randomly. A researcher-made questionnaire was used. Results: According to library studies, 4 indicators for measuring ethical climate and 18 indicators for contextual performance of human resources were identified. Two additional indicators have also been added after interviewing the experts. In the quantitative section, the instrumental climate had the greatest impact on the bankchr('39')s working environment and its effect on the staffchr('39')s behavior was negative and significantly negative? Conclusion: Instrumental ethical climate has a direct and traumatic effect on human resource performance. In order to increase the level of mental health of employees and the development of the organization, it is necessary to prevent the growth of instrumental ethical climate through educational programs.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of the traumatic experiences on the identity formation of Shaila Abdulla’s main character in Saffron Dreams and elaborates on how she manages to overcome her diverse emotional burdens. The author, who is concerned with Muslim women’s multiple identities and struggles in the American Diaspora, discusses the challenges of living in the increasing Islamophobic climate in the aftermath of 9/11 through the life of her heroine, Arissa Illahi, a Pakistani writer and artist, who loses her husband in the collapse of the World Trade Centre. Judith Herman’s conceptions of trauma and recovery are applied to discuss the impact of trauma on the identity formation of the character and how she succeeds to go through the process of healing. The paper also analyzes the literary strategies and narrative techniques in this feminist trauma narrative to indicate how the author has tried to represent what is originally marked by voicelessness. The results of the study demonstrates that although the traumatic event of 9/11 and its consequences has devastating effects on Arissa, she as an artist is able to utilize her psychological resources and to take advantage of familial ties to cope successfully with the traumatic experiences in her life, tolerate adversities, and even develop an optimistic view point about new possibilities for her future life. This paper supports the aim of contemporary feminist traumatology which is to make women’s trauma visible, give meaning to it, and ultimately create frameworks that promote the healing of trauma. Cathy Caruth, Judith Herman, and Laurie Vickroy are among the main theoreticians of the research.     

This s tudy explores traumatic effects and healing in Toni Morrison’s Home based on Cathy Caruth’s theory of trauma. By analyzing the novel’s portrayal of trauma, it inves tigates the manifes tations of trauma, the mechanisms of healing, and the interconnectedness between literary representations and academic trauma theory. The s tudy enhances the unders tanding of the memories of war and s truggles with feelings of guilt and shame. Reviewing exis ting literature, it identifies gaps in the application of Caruth’s concepts in analyzing the novel, emphasizing the need for a more in-depth exploration. The methodology involves applying Caruth’s theories to Morrison’s narrative s trategies, examining fragmentation, belatedness, and repetition related to characters’ traumatic memories and healing. The research ques tions address how Morrison depicts the healing process, the narrative techniques employed to convey trauma effects, and the contribution of literary devices like flashbacks to trauma representation. By bridging trauma theory with literary analysis, the s tudy concluded Morrison’s novel Home indicates the traumatic experiences of Frank Money’s Korean War and racial violence, which not only trigger personal traumas but also reflect his torical traumas affecting African American experiences.

The deep tragedy, that the environmental damages and mental problems have caused for human, led to the development of an interdisciplinary approach -ecopsychology- which is the integration of ecology and psychology to examine above all biophilia and its impact on human psyche. Applying the ecopsychological approach, the present study proposes an innovative reading of Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, the American female novelist. Ward depicts the ecological unconscious of the main characters through delineating mental peace they receive from nature. Moreover, the novel delicately portrays transpersonal ecology resulting in man’s transpersonal identification with nature. Jesmyn Ward’s work is indicative of key concepts such as ecopsychology, ecotherapy and transpersonal ecology, which were first introduced to the field of ecopsychology ecopsychology by eminent theorists, Theodore Roszak, Linda Buzzel and Warwick Fox. The present research intends to study the positive and negative effects of biophilia and eco-phobia caused mainly by psychological trauma following man’s alienation from nature. While demarcating the positive effects of biophilia on human psyche, the researcher substantiates the way psychological trauma comes to be subjected to therapy through man’s integration with green nature. Additionally, the research elaborates the importance of transpersonal ecology and identification with nature, by understanding the harmony between man and nature.