Trauma in Domestic Spaces: A Study of Tahmima Anam’s A Golden Age

This research explores Tahmima Anam's novel A Golden Age from the perspective of psychological trauma. This novel vividly depicts the incidents of the Bangladesh War of Independence from March 1971 to December 1971. Anam presents the impact of the civil conflict on women who were confined to their domestic spaces. It focuses on the permanent psychological fragmentation experienced by the female characters from the sidelines in a warzone. Through the lens of the trauma model, the association between war trauma and memory is analysed in depth. The main characteristics of war trauma such as recurring nightmares and belated memory are highlighted. This research has presented the psychological trauma experienced by Rehana, Maya, Sharmeen, Mrs. Chowdhury, Mrs. Sengupta, Silvi, and Mrs. Akram. The theoretical framework used to analyse the novel is Cathy Caruth's Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Cathy Caruth was one of the first people to study trauma. She built on Sigmund Freud's model of trauma.