Asserting Agency in Negotiating Trauma: A Critical Analysis of Githa Hariharan’s “The Remains of the Feast”

The emergence of trauma as an alarming global issue has demanded attention and concern worldwide The term trauma comes from the Greek tpaa meaning wound The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines trauma as an unpleasant and upsetting experience that affects you for a long time Trauma as a theory in literature escalated in the 1990s accelerated by the pioneering works of scholars such as Cathy Caruth Geoffrey H Hartman and Shoshana Felman In contemporary Indian English fiction the genre of short stories has consistently represented an essential component of the literary landscape The potency innate in short stories equates to that of novels in their efficacy to provide radical insights into social cultural historical and psychological arenas The Art of Dying 1993 authored by the esteemed contemporary postmodern postcolonial writer Githa Hariharan is a cluster of short stories that reflect on womens lives within the modern Indian setting The Remains of the Feast a short story from this collection unfolds the traumatic events in the life of Rukmini and her response to them as recounted by Ratna her greatgranddaughter The purpose of the study is to inquire into the reactions of Rukmini and Ratna to the events that unwind especially during Rukminis final phase of life This paper employs a feminist lens to examine the responses of these two central characters and brings to light the assertion of agency in the process of negotiating with physical and psychological trauma shedding light on their respective positions within the patriarchal framework