The whole nation’s trauma
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Date
2020
Authors
Aiman Kamran
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
UMT, Lahore
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the narrative from a psychological perspective about childhood trauma which reveals the protagonist’s enslavement, experiences and it’s after effects on her personality. This study analyzes how chronic childhood trauma leads to destruction of African-American community. The novel God Help the Child by Toni Morrison deals with the physical, psychological and spiritual destruction brought by a mother. Moreover, this study highlights the struggle of a child, who was alienated in a world of strangers. Childhood experiences and knowledge serves as an endless hell and functions as an ever-lasting misery that passes from one generation to another this experience later becomes the whole nation’s trauma. By applying the theory of trauma by Judith Herman and focusing on the psychology of the protagonist, this study aims to discuss all the traumatic issues discussed in this novel by Toni Morrison. Writer Toni Morrison shows the journey of the protagonist, Bride from devastating cycle of trauma to its tentative self and the role of mother in her life. Moreover, the study investigates the trauma of blackness which pushes the protagonist towards abnormal behavior. This inconsistent behavior highlights the racial discrimination that the protagonist faced and it takes a bodily existence in her mind because of her past traumatic experiences.