TRACES OF TRAUMA: MEMORY, VIOLENCE, AND HAUNTING IN A CURSE ON DOSTOEVSKY

ICSSR Sponsored One Day National Seminar on Literature, War and Memory: Narratives of Trauma and Healing in 20th and 21st Century English Literature 108 TRACES OF TRAUMA: MEMORY, VIOLENCE, AND HAUNTING IN A CURSE ON DOSTOEVSKY D. Ashwini PhD Research Scholar (F/T), Department of English Periyar University Centre for Postgraduate & Research Studies, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, India [email protected] Dr. P. Kiruthika Assistant Professor, Department of English Periyar University Centre for Postgraduate & Research Studies, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu, India [email protected] https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17283443 Abstract Atiq Rahimi’s A Curse on Dostoevsky (2011) critically interweaves themes of trauma, violence and memory within the socio-political background of war-torn Afghanistan. The book is about Rassoul, a guy who is extremely affected by Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment as he fights with the psychological properties of violence and the moral heaviness of his deeds. Through Rassoul’s journey, Rahimi learns about reminiscence and how previous trauma can have a robust effect on people. This study analyses the formation of trauma in the novel, manipulating the protagonist’s mind and shifting his vision of reality. This study exploits Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory and Judith Herman’s understandings on post-traumatic stress to analyse how narrative fragmentation, silence, and repetition contributes to the symbol of trauma. The novel’s twisty narrative and Rassoul’s internal fights illustrate the lasting consequences of violence and moral uncertainty. Keywords: Trauma, Memory, Violence, War, Morality, Psychology Introduction The amalgamation of memory, haunting, and violence makes for an fascinating group of stories coming from war-torn areas, where individual and group trauma mix. Atiq Rahimi is a well-known Afghan-French writer and filmmaker who writes about pain, refugee, and identity in the context of Afghanistan’s troubled past. His creative writings, often influenced by his experiences as a refugee and his profound investigation of political and psychological subjects, provide thoughtful insights into the enduring values of war and violence. A Curse on Dostoevsky (2011) is a strong reimagining of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment that moves the story’s moral questions to the ferocious and chaotic setting of Afghanistan during the civil war of the 1990s. This study examines the effects of trauma within the novel, inducing both individual and collective memory, and examines how Rassoul, the protagonist, signifies the challenges of a fragmented mind in a violent society. As he scuffles with the weight of his acts, shame, and a fading sense of right and wrong, the book uses narrative fragmentation, silent, and repetition to show how trauma can make people feel detached from themselves. By placing Rassoul’s internal conflicts against the bigger context of Afghanistan’s socio-political unrest, Rahimi makes a drama that questions the inevitable nature of memory, the weight of history, and the remaining effects of unresolved bloodshed. This study analyses A Curse on Dostoevsky through Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory and Judith Herman’s viewpoints on post-traumatic stress, exemplifying how it not only re-explains Dostoevskian existential dilemmas but also purposes as a profound reflection on the lasting effects of war. ICSSR Sponsored One Day National Seminar on Literature, War and Memory: Narratives of Trauma and Healing in 20th and 21st Century English Literature 109 Trauma and Memory: A Haunting Past Rassoul’s pain in A Curse on Dostoevsky is convolutely woven throughout the novel’s structure, considered by the frequent conflation of past and present. Cathy Caruth suggests that trauma intrudes linear temporality, creating a state in which “the past is not simply left behind but continues to inhabit the present” (Caruth 4). This display is apparent in Rassoul’s psychological distress as he stays incapable to escape the insistent spectre of his crime. After killing Nana Alia, he is trapped in a liminal realm where his guiltiness and the violence of war-torn Afghanistan come together in a never-ending series of pain. The novel conveys this messy temporality through Rassoul’s fragmented thoughts and repeating memories: “Memories surge forward like waves, overlapping, drowning each other, and yet refusing to disappear” (Rahimi 78). His mind swings between the past and the present, showing Caruth’s claim that trauma survivors are “caught between the necessity and the impossibility of grasping the event” (Caruth 6). Rassoul’s trauma is made inferior by the violence that has occurred in the past around him. His meetings with Sophia, who signifies both love and pain, express how personal trauma is connected to collective memory. She tells him, “There is no escape from the past; it clings to us like dust in the streets” (Rahimi 102). In the same way, the Judge’s terrifying occurrence adds to the heavy load of justice and vengeance, which are examples of the greater social and political factors that keep violence working. Rahimi’s work demonstrates Caruth’s concept that trauma is “not locatable in the simple violent or original event in an individual’s past but rather in the way that its unassimilated nature returns to haunt” (Caruth 4). Rassoul’s inability to progress highlights the predictable essence of trauma, wherein history and memory continue as constant spectres of an unresolved past. Violence and Moral Disintegration In A Curse on Dostoevsky, Rahimi displays a society where violence is not only communal but also recognized, making it hard to tell the change between justice and revenge. Rassoul’s moral disaster, similar to Raskolnikov’s in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, creates from his act of murder, however it is strengthened by the shakiness of Afghanistan’s war-torn environment. In Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman struggles that individuals who have suffered trauma frequently undergo a substantial disruption in their self-perception and moral honesty, resulting in a series of self-punishment and isolation. She proclaims that “trauma obliterates the victim’s essential beliefs regarding the world’s safety, life’s significance, and others’ goodwill” (Herman 51). Rassoul’s grief and misery as he deals with his crime in a lawless environment display how his mind is breaking down. He says, “If there is no law, then what is crime?” What is guilt if there is no justice? (Rahimi 132). His failure to distinguish significance in his actions exemplifies Herman’s claim that trauma survivors contend with self-definition in the absence of safe moral frameworks. The novel says that when the authorized and moral structures break down, personal fault becomes a part of the chaos in society. Rassoul’s ongoing self-blame and inner conflict illustrate the way trauma survivors affect guilt, a concept Herman refers to as “a burden of responsibility that victims cannot relinquish, even when the circumstances are beyond their control” (Herman 189). His agony is not only psychological; it also indicates the universal moral decline of a nation expended by violence. He says, “This city is full of murderers, but the only one who admits it is the one who wants to be forgiven” (Rahimi 165). Rahimi uses Rassoul’s struggle to demonstration how trauma breaks down both individual and group ethics, parting people stuck in a never-ending cycle of moral deterioration and existential terror. ICSSR Sponsored One Day National Seminar on Literature, War and Memory: Narratives of Trauma and Healing in 20th and 21st Century English Literature 110 Silence and the Fragmentation of Self One of the most stimulating things about Rahimi’s writing in A Curse on Dostoevsky is how he uses peace and shattered conversation to show the main character’s broken mind. Cathy Caruth and Judith Herman, both trauma theorists, declares how hard it is for people who have been through trauma to talk about what occurred to them, but they do so from opposite ideas of view. Caruth theorizes that trauma exceeds conservative representation, subsequent in a paradox where survivors are prescribed to re-experience the awful event while concurrently wrestling with its whole processing. She asserts that trauma “is not merely a distortion of reality but an intrinsic latency, an unassimilated experience that resists narrative closure” (Caruth 6). This is understood from Rassoul’s inability to evidently say how guilty and anxious he feels inside, as shown by his account, “The words escape me.” They melt away, like the meaning of my own actions” (Rahimi 88). His smashed speeches and periods of silent shows Caruth’s theory that trauma disorders language and memory, deceiving survivors in a never-ending cycle of confusion. Herman, on the contrary, theorizes silence as a feature of the dissociative response to trauma, when survivors unfasten from their experiences as an approach for psychological selfpreservation. She suggests that “speechless terror” produces a significant departure from both the self and society (Herman 37). Rassoul’s rising separation shows this, as he halts having meaningful discussions with other people because he can’t prompt his inner conflict. His silence is a sign of how his wisdom of self is falling apart, much like the disorder and disintegration of the world around him. He notes, “Everything is in ruins—houses, streets, justice, even words” (Rahimi 142). Rahimi’s novel shows the ineffability of trauma by combining Caruth’s notion of shocking repetition with Herman’s idea of dissociation. It shows how silence and fragmentation can be both a symbol and a way of telling the story of psychological pain. Conclusion Atiq Rahimi’s A Curse on Dostoevsky is a overwhelming investigation into the effects of trauma, memory, and the closure of ethics inside the chaos of Afghanistan, which is currently experiencing war. In accordance with Cathy Caruth’s concept that trauma pauses linear temporality and battles full incorporation, the novel utilizes Rassoul’s psychological variability to illustrate how past violence insistently intrudes upon the current state of affairs. It is a replication of the haunting nature of unsettled trauma that Rassoul is incapable to get past his crime and that his self-narration is fragmented. As an additional point of notice, Rahimi’s portrayal of guilt and self-punishment is reliable with Judith Herman’s disagreement that trauma survivors struggle with ethical integrity and self-perception, particularly in conditions that are lawless and forceful. The novel’s use of silence and broken language also express how trauma cannot be put into words, which supports both Caruth’s idea of throbbing repetition and Herman’s idea of detachment as a way to survive. Rassoul’s change into isolation and self-doubt eventually reflects the larger failure of social order, suggesting that in a world where justice and morality have depreciated, individual shame alters into an extension of collective anguish. By combining psychological depth with past violence, Rahimi’s work is a splendid reflection on the longlasting effects of trauma. 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