Trauma, Healing and Narrative in Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You

Traumatic experiences are often claimed as unspeakable and beyond the reach of language. Nevertheless, literature has always found a way to express these inexpressible pains and depict the traumatic experiences of its characters. Using Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, this study explores trauma narrative within a mixed-race family dealing with the hidden pain of loss in 1970s America. This novel is very detailed in depicting the racial, gender, and intergenerational trauma suffered by the Lee family in the social dynamics of race and gender discrimination. This paper, therefore, focuses on the individual traumas of James Lee, Marilyn, and their daughter Lydia, as well as on their recovery from trauma, by examining how these traumas intersect with social pressures to shape the characters’ life trajectories and the dynamics of the family. This paper also examines the trauma narrative strategies that Celeste Ng uses to give voice to traumatic experiences, with an emphasis on how Celeste Ng invites readers to reflect on issues of race, gender, and generational divide in the context of globalization. In this manner, this study contributes to the development of literary trauma studies, provides some therapeutic values for those who have similar experiences, and prompts readers to think about social inequality across the globe and come up with the idea of creating a better and more inclusive future.