Fractured selves and haunted pasts: Reading Trauma through Caruth and Felman in Susan Sontag’s Debriefing (1978), Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind (1985), and Annie Proulx’s Postcards (1992).

Meliani SouadMerdjok Massiva2026-04-272026-04-272025-07-07Literature and interdisciplinary approacheshttps://dspace.ummto.dz/handle/ummto/2996256p. ; (+CD-Rom)This dissertationisentitled FracturedSelvesandHauntedPasts:ReadingTraumathrough CaruthandFelmaninDebriefing(1978),ALieoftheMind(1985),andPostcards(1992). It exploreshowtraumaisportrayedinthenarrativesmentionedinthetitle,throughShoshana Felman’sandCathyCaruth’stheoreticalframeworks.Itexamineshowtraumaaffectsboth individuals andthepeoplearoundthem,showinghowthepainofapersoncanspreadthrough his orherfamily,community,andsociety,andhowitdisturbstime,memory,andtheabilityto speak. Allthreeworksshowtraumaassomethingthatisdifficulttodescribe,usuallysilenced. The analysisdemonstratesthatcharactersarefrequentlymutedbytheboundariesoflanguage and socialexpectations,andstaylockedbetweensurvivalanddestruction. A LieoftheMind examinesfamilialbreakdown, Postcards examinesgenerationalguiltandsilence,and Debriefing examinesnarrativedisintegration.Eachchapterfocusesonadistinctwaythattraumamanifests itself. Thisstudyconcludesthatliteratureaimstopresenttraumaratherthantoresolveit,to testifytotheunspeakableandtohighlightthemoralobligationoflistening.enTraumawitnessingtestimonynarrativefragmentationprivateandcollective traumatheunspeakablefracturedselveshauntedpastsFractured selves and haunted pasts: Reading Trauma through Caruth and Felman in Susan Sontag’s Debriefing (1978), Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind (1985), and Annie Proulx’s Postcards (1992).Thesis