Trauma and the Unconscious Mind in Selected Modern English Fiction: A Psychoanalytical Study

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to argue about how the unconscious mind and the trauma representation are manifested in the chosen modern English fiction regarding the psychoanalytical approach. According to Beloved and Mrs Dalloway, the analysis assesses the development of the traumatic events, rendering them psychologically disturbing processes that cannot be easily articulated and narrated in a linear way. It is written on Freudian and post-Freudian perception of repression, memory and unconscious and how the trauma reappears in the form of broken memories, figurative figures, body exhibitions and disjointed time sequences. Nonlinear narration and stream-of-consciousness narration are employed in the novels as experimental narrative devices, mirroring the way the unconscious mind operates and highlighting the extent to which trauma has shaped identity and vision. The research also highlights the issues of social silence and institutional failure in exacerbating mental misery, as well as examines the least progress toward recovery in recognition and shared memory. As the comparison of the modernist narrative strategy and the postmodern narrative strategy in the context of the study has demonstrated, trauma is a personal aspect and a societal one, which has been defined by the violence and war in history. Finally, the paper will argue that modern English fiction offers a solid literary platform to convey subconscious pain and the discovery of the full grey and unresolved condition of trauma.