Browsing by Author "Korir, Millicent Jemutai"

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    War Trauma and Character Mutation of Child Characters in Majok Tulba’s Beneath the Darkening Sky and Emmanuel Dongala’s Johnny Mad Dog
    (Kenyatta University, 2024-03) Korir, Millicent Jemutai
    This study examines war trauma and character mutation of child characters in Majok Tulba’s Beneath the Darkening Sky and Emmanuel Dongala’s Johnny Mad Dog. By acknowledging the interrelation between literature and trauma, this study investigates how writers create child characters that offer a glimpse into the world of trauma and the psychological burden it imposes on children who participate in civil wars. This study has three objectives: assess how the child characters in the two texts portray civil war. Secondly, interrogate the use of intrusive recollections to depict war trauma as a thematic concern. Lastly, examine how character mutation leads to fragmented subjectivity in child characters in the selected texts. This study adopts a theoretical perspective of trauma and psychoanalytic literary theories. This research uses qualitative research methodology whereby purposive sampling was used to choose the primary texts and characters. The texts were examined in line with the research objectives. This study contributes to the existing literary corpus of knowledge on trauma by bringing to the fore the voices of child characters in the selected texts and how they represent children affected by civil wars, especially in the African continent. The study established that child characters in the texts chosen occupy a triple place of victim-witness-perpetrator. It also found that the child characters experience nightmares and flashbacks, which are responses to trauma that occur when they attempt to work through traumatic memories. This study also found that character mutation led to fragmented subjectivities. It concluded that civil war compels the child characters to behave barbarically, adapt to their new environment, and automatically understand their roles while coping with a warring situation.