Memory and Trauma in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and Ahlam Mostaghanemi’s Memory in the Flesh (1993).

Abstract

This dissertation is concerned with studying the theme of memoryandtrauma in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (1925)and AhlamMostaghanemi’sMemory in the Flesh(1993). To support our research, we have relied on Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory:Trauma: Exploration in Memory (1995) and Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History (1996). We have shown how both novelists have portrayedtheir charactersin a struggle with their past through memories and different conditions that lead to their present situations. We have also discussed the way they raise the issue ofmemory and trauma as major themes in both novels. Finally, we have studiedthe modernist and postmodernisttechniques; mainly flashback and stream of consciousness, to reveal to which extent the traumatic memories have affected the characters of both works and have occupied a large part in their lives.We have found that both authors havefocused on the relationship between the events and its traumatic impact on the charactersin the context of trauma theory.