Social Process of Cultural Trauma in Khalangama Hamala

Abstract

Khalangama Hamala is a trauma narrative of a young girl, Radha Paudel. It is a live story of the day of the Maoist attack on Khalanga Bazaar and hardship of Jumli people from the prospective of a health worker. Paudel has presented detail on what had come about during the day of assault at Khalanga. She clears line between perpetrator and victims and becomes very objective in the representation of the events at the same time her protrusion is parted. Researcher claims such a projection of binary between two rebelling forces and finger-pointing at narratives do not lead society into reconciliation and ever lasting peace settlement rather it raises a sense of revenge among the conflicting groups and ultimately leads to never ending divergence. To analyze such a complicated composition of the society, I adopt the theoretical tool eni by Jeffrey C. Alexander: Cultural Trauma. This theory deals with how does identity of social group configure and refigure within their societies? How does a suffering of a certain member will be the suffering of the entire cultural group? Who and how victimized narrate their horrendous incidents? How can the war be end at reconciliation? At the same time, I seize some idea from Anker smith and Ronald Barthes who focus on dialogic nature of language and unpredictability respectively. I assume author as ethical and moral character of society they should focus on what is right instead what truth is. Key words: Key words: Cultural trauma, Nepali civil war, binary representation, reconciliation, middle voice, trauma writing