WITNESSING THE SELF: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY AND TRAUMA TESTIMONY IN GIRL, INTERRUPTED BY SUSANNA KAYSEN AND THE BURN JOURNALS BY BRENT RUNYON
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs171-2202622906Keywords:
trauma, memory, identity, narrative, testimony, memoirAbstract
This research paper examines the intersection of autobiographical memory and trauma testimony in memoirs through a close reading of Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen and The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon. These memoirs are not personal accounts only: they are performances of mental collapse, social disillusionment, and the elusive process of recovery. The views of trauma theorists Cathy Caruth, Dori Laub, and Shoshana Felman are used to inform the analysis. It studies how narrative voice can be utilized to convey trauma by means of temporality disjunction and fragmented form as formal elements to embody the resistance to coherent narrative that trauma presents. In these texts, which trace the rebuilding of identity following suicidal thoughts, the process of storytelling is itself both therapeutic and politically charged. In this paper, the redemptive power of literature to define and place post-traumatic agency and identity is discussed.
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