People’s War Trauma Narratives: A Study of Their Affective Economy
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Central Department of English
Abstract
The dissertation studies four People’s War narratives ─ Palpasa Café, Forget Kathmandu An
Elegy For Democracy, Sipahiki Swasni (A Soldier’s Wife), Stories of Conflict and War which
show trauma rendition as a complex and fallible process and one inflected with cultural politics
of emotion. Although the primary war narratives express trauma with varying degrees, a certain
bent of mind of the writers plays a seminal role in determining the true representation of trauma
and affect. The evocation of emotional response of the readers in war narratives is charged up
with the ideological postulations of the writers. In light of trauma and affect theory of La Capra
and Sara Ahmed respectively, the dissertation tries to unearth the way to trauma transference that
helps acknowledge the traumatic plight of the victims. The dissertation brings forth the latent
ideological conjectures of the writers to produce certain kinds of emotional reactions to the
victimhood of the war victims. Giorgio Agamben’s ideas have also been brought to give a true
picture of the victims and the narration of the writers.
The research assumes that the measuring rods of trauma and affect theory applied to
analyse Palpsa Café and Forget Kathmandu: An Elegy For Democracy frustrate the readers who
do not find the requisites of trauma transference having been adopted in these narrative texts. On
the contrary, these are clad with ideological underpinnings that make them be aligned with only a
certain group of readers. The dissertation argues that Sipahiki Swasni and Stories of Conflict and
War stand tall from the perspective of trauma transference and unprejudiced evocation of
emotion for the true war victims.