War Trauma in Nepali and Russian Stories: A Comparison and Contrast

Abstract

This research has excavated the major theme of war trauma embedded in western and non-western literature, especially short stories. The main aim of this research is to identify the nature of war trauma, and also to relate war with trauma. The thesis has focused on what kind of manifestations of trauma are presented in the Nepali and Russian stories. Similarly, it has brought into light the traumatized characters through psychoanalytical and cultural perspectives of trauma. In doing so, it has taken two Nepali short stories, namely "Maoist in the Village" and "The Bond of Blood" and two Russian stories, "The Mother of a Traitor" and "The Fate of a Man" as the primary texts. While analyzing the causes and consequences of war trauma, the research has taken into account the life events of the characters and the circumstances they undergo. Furthermore, it shades light upon the overall traumatic framework of the stories through descriptive, interpretative and analytical approach in the research. Besides, it compares and contrasts between the stories written in these two different countries and contexts. It has taken references from different scholars’ ideas like; Cathy Caruth’s “Claimed and Unclaimed Experience”, Jeffrey Alexander’s “Cultural Trauma”, Laurie Vickroy’s “Trauma as a Social Theory” and Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic approach to authenticate the claims made. The contemplation over the stories through various versions of trauma theory discovers that trauma is a grim but unavoidable part of war.