Congolese Women's War Trauma in Lynn Nottage's Ruined

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

English Department, Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education Ain Shams University, Egypt

Abstract

This paper explores the effect of women’s war trauma on four female characters in Ruined (2008) within the framework of trauma theory from Judith Herman’s perspective in her book Trauma and Recovery (1992). Her work “delineates the spectrum of human adaptation to traumatic events and gives a new diagnostic name to the psychological disorder found in survivors of prolonged, repeated abuse” (Herman, 1992, p.2). She mentions three stages of trauma namely, “[h]yper-arousal”, “intrusion” and “constriction” (p.25). In addition, she introduces three stages of recovery which “are establishing safety, reconstructing the trauma story, and restoring the connection between survivors and their community” (p.2). Moreover, Congolese women’s war trauma during the Civil War (1996-2003) is specifically put under the spotlight. Furthermore, the researcher introduces the author and illustrates how far women’s war trauma is pictured in Lynn Nottage’s play Ruined (2008), elaborating the different reactions of the four females represented in the play: Mama Nadi, Josephine, Salima and Sophie. The paper focuses more on Salima and Sophie as the major female victims of war trauma. This is to be done in the light of Herman’s views. By the end, the researcher sums up the main ideas answering the paper’s raised questions.

Keywords

References

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