Summary
Trauma studies challenge and expand the pathological definition of trauma, offering additional layers of social significance and personal complexity through the examination of trauma in literature. Myriam Gurba's novel Mean (2017) serves as an exemplar of the intricate intersectionality of divergent traumatic experiences embodied by the protagonist. This paper undertakes an analysis of the linguistic, racial, corporeal, gender-related, queer, and sexual assault-induced PTSD that justifies the protagonist's symbolic identity, as well as the responses to traumatic events that shape the protagonist’s narrative. While acknowledging the persistent presence of trauma's haunting echoes, this paper explores the protagonist's agency and the process of reconstructing the self through the fluidity of traumatic layers. This reconstruction challenges the heteropatriarchal victimization or demonization of traumatized individuals, prompting a call for a more inclusive definition of normativity.
Rocío Gonzalez-Espresati Clement
https://doi.org/10.17613/xmj8-sh47
Rocio Gonzalez-Espresati Clement is a first year Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and Spanish literature from Rice University where she competed as a Division I student-athlete, and a master’s degree in Spanish literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on how trauma and silence are articulated in Contemporary novel and film. Originally from Spain, she is a driven individual whose research aims to contribute to empowering women within and beyond the Academia. Her interests include feminist theory, trauma theory, psychoanalysis, twentieth and twenty-first century literature, queer theory, race theory, and Hispanism.