Impact of Trauma in Memory and Cultural Narratives Found in Select Kazuo Ishiguro's Novels

Trauma texts employ techniques to express the emotional stress in a creative work. Trauma plays a significant role in the process of narration because every human undergoes emotional locks in life. When a story is narrated within a structure of intertextuality, or as a repetition of traumatic experience, it reveals more plots to the story. Therefore, memory plays a vital role in narration and it is the best way to create suspense. The select novels of Kazuo Ishiguro are taken to make further analysis of the impact of trauma found in his works. Now, Marxism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, New Historicism, and Psychoanalytical Criticism have contributed to the development of trauma studies. In real life, memory acts as supreme in the characters of Ishiguro. The entire trauma created within a human mind is due to the impact of confusion in characters, childhood trauma, sexual abuse, discrimination, public brutality and domestic violence. It leads to violent behaviour in an individual. Psychosis is also created by trauma because of the experience of war, betrayal and other catastrophic events. The helplessness to balance emotions leads the way to the projection of trauma in a narrative. Nevertheless, trauma gets its reaction from the individual and his experience and is different from one to another. A writer needs to handle it carefully. Kazuo Ishiguro uses trauma and its outcomes as his narrative base to develop his story presenting the tyranny of individuals and alienated emotions. He takes note of issues such as identity crises, gender problems, tattered relationships, historical changes and global problems as his structure in creating his novels. He makes every reader express compassion for his characters and creates awareness among the reader. He dedicates his promise to writing for different nationalities and generations and wins international acclaim. This paper presents the traumatic concepts being analyzed in the select novels of Ishiguro.