Literature on trauma which became prominent after 1990s deals with some very prominent issues based on psychological, philosophical, ethical and aesthetic dimensions in representations of distressing events in art form. This particular form of literature studies how the effects of trauma upon individual survivors gets reflected and is received in society at large. The literature of trauma refracts nature of trauma, community of perpetrators, in consonance with contemporary social, political and cultural location. Further, literature of trauma acts as a therapeutic device wherein victims are relieved of their neurosis by recalling the memory of the painful experiences. It exists in a niche between personal and collective. That is how museums, memorials and remembrance days commemorate personal/collective sorrow by transmuting it into social consciousness. Another important aspect of trauma literature is the role of memory in rediscovering and translating the past. Using some of the insights provided by trauma studies, I propose in my paper a reassessment of the literature based on partition of India in 1947. For it, I have chosen Khuswant Singh’s iconic novel Train to Pakistan and Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice-Candy Man for detailed study while referring to some important landmarks such as Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story ‘Toba Tek Singh’ in my discussion of the various attributes of Trauma literature.
Associate Professor, Dept. of English, Government College for Women, Pali, Rewari, Haryana
