Trauma Of Becoming in Ikechukwu Emmanuel Asika’s Tamara

Abstract

The oppressive nature of patriarchal impositions has been extensively explored in literary discourse, highlighting its damaging effects on individual autonomy and selfhood through forced conformity. Significantly, to avoid examining past studies, this study mainly examines the trauma of becoming Ikechukwu Emmanuel Asika’s Tamara. Trauma of becoming refers to the distress an individual experiences while struggling to convert, transform, or grow into living by another person’s ideals, principles, or expectations. To carry out this study, two objectives were formulated: to examine how the protagonist experiences trauma and its effect on the protagonist in the text. In addition to the above, trauma literary theory, which advocates for dislocated minds, is adopted as its theoretical framework to guide this qualitative investigation. This research reveals that the protagonist, Tamara, experiences trauma in the novel through her father’s imposition of his ideals on her. The traumatic experience affected her, resulting in self-loss. In other words, the representation of trauma of becoming in the work shows that Tamara’s father’s self-imposition precipitates self-loss in his daughter. The study concludes that the literary writer represents trauma through the theme of self, specifically highlighting the consequences of self-imposition.