Identity, remembrance and insidious trauma: A narrative analysis of Hanif’s Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (2011)

Author(s) : Hajra Umer, Maria Farooq Maan & Sabah Aziz

Abstract:

Pakistan is one of the developing countries which is facing a significant
increase in the rate of mental health problems as a result of ongoing
political unrest, geographical conflict and large-scale violence (Munawar
et al., 2020). The study examines the fictional portrayal of insidious
trauma suffered by members of the Pakistani Christian community. The
novel under study i.e. Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (2011) by Hanif has been
selected to fulfil the aforementioned objective. Embedded in literary
trauma theory, this research is a qualitative exploratory study. It focusses
on culture sensitive issues related to the field of trauma studies. The
theoretical concept of insidious trauma and the related concepts such ascoppression and privilege presented by Brown (2008) have been studied incdetail. The text under study has been analyzed using the trauma literarycmodel presented by Balaev (2012) which deals with the use of differentcnarrative techniques in trauma fiction. The findings revealed that the
protagonist of the novel Alice Bhatti who is a member of the PakistanicChristian community suffers from insidious trauma as a result of discrimination, bias and humiliation faced by her in daily life. The different narrative techniques employed in the novel include narrative dissociation, silence, landscape imagery and animal imagery (Balaev, 2012). These narrative techniques not only highlight the traumatized protagonist’s psychological distress but also aid in establishing the
relationship among identity, remembrance and place in the selected novel. The study delineates the role of place in shaping the consciousness of the traumatized protagonist. The present research aims to bring
awareness among the Pakistani public regarding the psychological distress caused in minority communities as a result of their maltreatment by majority groups. This shall pave the way for future researchers to study the cultural specific issues related to trauma based on other underprivileged groups present in Pakistani society.
Keywords: cultural sensitivity, insidious trauma, minority groups,
narrative techniques, trauma studies