Reflection of Public Anguish in Bhattarai’s Socrates’ Footsteps: A Trauma Theoretical Perspective

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Bimal Kishore Shrivastwa

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze how Govinda Raj Bhattarai has recapitulated the public angst, the deteriorated socio-economic condition, and the cultural downfall of Nepal during the period of ten years of Maoist civil war. The characters of the novel, Ananta, Purnima, Bhaktaman, Chitrakar, and others confront various problems in their lives due to the political instability and domestic war or the Maoist civil war. Through the close reading of the text from the perspectives of trauma theory, with special references of the trauma theorists, Cathy Caruth, Jeffrey C. Alexander, and the like, the paper focuses on why and how the Maoist waged war against the imposition of the social, political, spiritual ideologies by the ruling parties, that is by the monarchical systems. The research finding is that the domestic war leads to nothing but trauma, demolition, anarchy, fights, in the life of the public, signified through the experiences of the emotionally wounded characters.

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