A STUDY ON SURVIVAL, MEMORY AND POST-WAR TRAUMATIC SUFFERINGS IN ANUK ARUDPRAGASAM'S 'THE STORY OF A BRIEF MARRIAGE'

ICSSR Sponsored One Day National Seminar on Literature, War and Memory: Narratives of Trauma and Healing in 20th and 21st Century English Literature 11 A STUDY ON SURVIVAL, MEMORY AND POST-WAR TRAUMATIC SUFFERINGS IN ANUK ARUDPRAGASAM’S ‘ THE STORY OF A BRIEF MARRIAGE’ Dr. J. Sakthi Kumaar Assistant Professor of English Government Arts and Science College, Harur, Dharmapuri https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17283281 Abstract In the era of civil war all over the world, the aftereffects of war are traumatic and its sufferings are unimaginable. World literature is replete with narratives and sufferings of war. Unlike professional historians who investigate, theorize, and interpret, novelists attempt to reconstruct, personalize, and humanize the inhumanity of global war. The vision is relieved by hopeful thoughts of survival, which ends the sometimes overwhelming empathy. Though the likelihood of our paths touching again is slim, that recollection reminds us that our thoughts will always be intertwined. The chosen text highlights the powerful fictional memoirs of victims or survivors in war fiction, based on the parallels and shifts in post-traumatic mythology. The present paper highlights an analytical model of such war trauma fiction and it applies such a framework to understand the existence of traumatic flashes in the selected text and observe suffering in both physical and emotional states. The fragmented disruption of identity and reality of an individual’s psychological, personal, and temporal reflects the fractures of the war. This study further explores the protagonists’ loss of self-identity, the memory of displacement, separation, physical trauma, and separation from a family which in-depth affects his self for the act of survival. Keywords: Trauma, fragmented memory, post-war sufferings, survival, identity and displacement. Introduction Trauma becomes an inescapable reality and it shaping the physical but also the psychological landscape of those who endure it in the context of war. Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage depicts on the characters lived experiences of trauma besides the background of Sri Lanka’s civil war. The narrative of Dinesh and Ganga as two young refugees brought together in a brief and fragile union of the novel in which delves deep into the emotional and physical consequences of war. The exploration is limited to the immediate horrors of violence and extends to the enduring psychological scars that disrupt the characters identity, memory and time as portrayed in the novel. The scholars like Cathy Caruth, Judith Herman and Dori Laub provides a lens to examine the fragmented and also the inexpressible nature of traumatic experience as highlighted in Trauma theory. Arudpragasam’s novel highlights with key elements of this theory which includes the dissociation, bodily trauma and the inarticulability of suffering in a elaborated context. Dinesh and Ganga’s marriage is both a traditional bond of intimacy and becomes a momentary reprieve in the face of pervasive violence in which a fragile attempt to reclaim agency and humanity amid chaos in everyday life. This paper analyzes The Story of a Brief Marriage through the context of trauma theory, focusing on how Arudpragasam captures the fragmented, dislocated experiences of his characters in the novel. The structure and language of the novel reflects the inner turmoil of individual caught in the aftermath of violence and their memories shattered and their sense of self fragmented. The examining of the elements in the paper aims to demonstrate how Arudpragasam portrays trauma and also reviews the broader human costs of war where the survival itself becomes an ongoing negotiation with pain, loss, and memory. ICSSR Sponsored One Day National Seminar on Literature, War and Memory: Narratives of Trauma and Healing in 20th and 21st Century English Literature 12 Fragmented Memory and Emotional Numbness Caruth (1996) defines, this is a different kind of memory; it is the memory of the trauma itself. This memory can only be accessed through the symptoms the victim experiences after trauma. Cathy Caruth claims that “trauma is not simply an effect of destruction but also, fundamentally, an enigma of survival” (1996, p. 85). In order to unravel the enigma of trauma, one needs to know what exists after the trauma. She claims that what remains after the trauma is its memory. According to trauma theory, the fragmentation of memory is a hallmark of trauma, where survivors are unable to organize their experiences into a coherent narrative. Dinesh’s attempt to recall life before the war is marked by gaps and disconnection: “The memories came to him in pieces, disjointed and incomplete, like shards of glass that could not be put back together. He tried to make sense of them, but they refused to form a coherent whole.”(42) Trauma which often disrupts linear memory by leaving the survivors with disjointed recollections and fragmented experiences overall. Dinesh's memory of his life before the war is fractured and it where in the reflecting way, trauma alters one’s ability to recall events coherently: “He could no longer remember what it felt like to be at home, to walk through familiar streets, to feel safe in his own bed. Those memories were like distant dreams now, washed away by the endless days of fear.” (51) Trauma is a wound that is “inflicted by an emotional shock so powerful that it breaches the mind’s experience of time, self and the world” (Eyerman, 2013, p. 42). Both Dinesh and Ganga exhibit signs of dissociation, a common response to trauma where individuals disconnect from their emotions or physical sensations in order to survive overwhelming events. Dinesh often feels detached from his body and emotions: “He felt like he was no longer a person, just a body moving through space, reacting to the things that happened around him. His thoughts, his memories, his desires had been stripped away, leaving only this shell.”(72) Ganga experiences dissociation in particularly within her interactions with Dinesh and her silence with detachment reflect the emotional numbness trauma and coping with mechanism to protect oneself from further pain: “She stood beside him, still and unmoving, her eyes lowered to the ground. There was no sign of happiness in her face, no sign of hope. She seemed resigned to her fate, as though she had accepted that her life would be defined by loss.”(77) Trauma theory highlights dissociation as a defense mechanism when the mind is overwhelmed by experiences that a too painful and to process fully in the context. In the context of novel, this detachment is evident in both characters in which their responses to trauma include shutting down emotionally in life. Hyperawareness and Inexpressibility of Trauma A key element in trauma theory is the idea that trauma is often beyond language—it is something that resists articulation. Throughout the novel the silence is used to convey the inexpressibility of trauma and particularly with Ganga and whose silence is more revealing than words could be: “She said nothing in response, her face blank, as though the words did not reach her. It was as though the war had drained the life from her, leaving her with nothing to say.”(129) Trauma prevents victims from feeling their emotions and physical pains in some circumstances. This case also makes victims remain silent and isolated from the world around them. Gibbs (2004) claims: ICSSR Sponsored One Day National Seminar on Literature, War and Memory: Narratives of Trauma and Healing in 20th and 21st Century English Literature 13 Persons with PTSD may feel numb; have less interest in events around them; have less ability to feel emotions, especially those related to intimate involvement with others, and may end up detached from other people and with a sense that they have no future (p. 153). The characters' difficulty to express its trauma reflects the "unspeakable" nature of traumatic experiences described by trauma theorists like Cathy Caruth. Their silence points to the limits of language when it comes to conveying the full impact of their suffering: “Words felt inadequate, as if they could not contain the vastness of what he was feeling. The things he wanted to say seemed to slip through his grasp, dissolving into silence before they could be spoken.”(43) Trauma often manifests in a heightened sense of awareness of one's body, especially when that body has been exposed to violence. Dinesh constantly reflects on the vulnerability of his body, anticipating pain and death, which is a key sign of trauma: “He imagined the pieces of his body scattered across the field, bones and skin and organs strewn about, unrecognizable, no longer part of a whole.”(57) Trauma is a wound in which it is “inflicted by an emotional shock so powerful that it breaches the mind’s experience of time, self and the world” (Eyerman, 2013, p. 42) The body becomes a site of trauma where the novel emphasizes the characters' hyperawareness of their physical fragility, reflecting the somatic symptoms often associated with trauma. This heightened awareness of bodily vulnerability is a survival mechanism: “His body was always tense, always ready to react, as though it had learned to expect danger at every moment. Even when nothing was happening, he could not relax, the memory of fear lodged deep in his bones.”(136) Trauma of Survival and Search for Meaning Roger Luckhurst suggests that soldiers of the World Wars “not only suffered memory gaps but also repeatedly re-experienced extreme events in flashbacks, nightmares and hallucinations months or even years afterwards”.(2007, p. 500). It discusses on how the trauma survivors repeatedly return to the traumatic event, either through flashbacks or recurring thoughts. Dinesh's continual reflection on the possibility of death and the injuries he has witnessed reflects this repetition: “He remembered the bodies he had seen, torn apart by shrapnel, their faces twisted with the shock of death. He knew that his own body could end the same way, reduced to pieces, obliterated in an instant.”(93) The repetition of trauma is not just about reliving past events but also about the trauma of survival itself—of having to constantly confront death and destruction. Dinesh’s repetitive thoughts about his body and the violence around him reflect this: “The memory of pain was always with him, like a ghost that followed him wherever he went. Even when he was not in immediate danger, the thought of what could happen, of the pain that could come, was always there.” (61) The re-experiencing and repetition of the traumatic experience are important ways that are used to cope with PTSD: “the traumatic return represents the mind’s attempt to master what was never fully grasped in the first place” (Caruth, 2013, p. 4). The most challenging aspects of trauma is the difficulty survivors face in finding meaning in their suffering. Dinesh and Ganga’s experiences reflect this struggle, as they are unable to find purpose or hope in the face of overwhelming loss and violence: “There was no meaning to be found in the war, no reason for the destruction that surrounded them. It had simply happened, and now they were left to make sense of lives that had been torn apart.”(128) ICSSR Sponsored One Day National Seminar on Literature, War and Memory: Narratives of Trauma and Healing in 20th and 21st Century English Literature 14 Carlos A. Sanz Mingo (2019) states that “trauma brings the best and worst of human nature; […] Some people want to re-enact traumatic experiences of past situations. In these reenactments, they could be the victimizer or the victim” (p. 56). The novel depicts the existential crisis in which the trauma survivors often face the purpose to a continuing to live when so much has been taken from them: “It was clear that she expected nothing from the future, that she had given up any hope of things being different. The war had taught her not to hope, not to dream, because it would only lead to more pain.”(85) Conclusion Anuk Arudpragasam’s The Story of a Brief Marriage deals with a poignant and visceral exploration of trauma which reveals the profound psychological and physical toll during the war inflicts on individuals and communities. The characters Dinesh and Ganga’s experience in the novel illustrate on how the trauma fragments one’s memory, distorts time and disrupts the capacity for emotional connection and communication in daily life. The characters' fragmented recollections and their inability to express their suffering which would help the key aspects of trauma theory and particularly the inexpressibility of trauma with the sense of dislocation it created in the novels. Arudpragasam’s representation of war does more on portrayal of physical destruction and it highlights the long-lasting with invisible wounds that trauma leaves behind in the life of the characters in the novel. The novel and its characters bodily vulnerability, emotional numbness and their struggle to find meaning in their survival emphasizes the idea that trauma transcends the immediate moment of violence. The shaping of their identities and relationships long after the physical danger has passed. Eventually, The Story of a Brief Marriage serves as a powerful commentary on the human cost of conflict which reminds us that the effects of trauma which is confined to the battlefield to endure in the minds and bodies of the survivors. The portrayal in situating the reader within the fragmented inner worlds of his characters the author provides a profound insight into the nature of trauma which deeply illustrating the complexity of healing and the precariousness of survival in a world shattered by violence in around of the characters in the novel. The novel questions the audience with attention to the urgent need to address the psychological scars of war and they continue to haunt the lives of those left in its wake. Bibliography Primary Source Arudpragasam, Anuk. The Story of a Brief Marriage. Flatiron Books, 2016. Secondary Sources Agamben, Giorgio. Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. Zone Books, 1999. PDF Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. PDF Caruth, Cathy. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. PDF Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub. 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