Exploring Impact of Unresolved Childhood Trauma and Fragmented Memories on Identity and Behaviour: A Caruthian Study of Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods

Abstract

This study investigates the symbolic, narrative and psychological aspects of childhood trauma and incomplete memory in the novel The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Based on the trauma theory the paper utilizes the contribution of Cathy Caruth, Sigmund Freud, Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub, Judith Herman and Michael Marder as it explores the trauma influence on identity, behavior and story-telling. The research acquires a qualitative, theory-based approach to textual analysis and studies the ways in which trauma is rendered not only in the struggles of the characters but also in the narrative disjunction, silence, and spatial symbolism as well as the intergenerational transmission.  The research also identifies the gendering of emotional suppression in female characters where the experience seems to be silenced as the result of being internalized by the characters. The evidence provided indicates that literature as a work of formal choices can serve as an instrument of ethical bearing witness. This study underlines the identity of the reader as the witness of the trauma, and the necessity of being a sensitive reader who is paying close attention to the text with empathy. This research provides a response to general discussions about trauma, feminist literary studies, and cultural memory by introducing trauma as an emotive force and narrative because it is this influence that causes the more comprehensive effects of unresolved grief and silence, both socially and psychologically.

Keywords: Cathy Caruth, intergenerational, The God of the Woods, Liz Moore,