Duality of Trauma and Hope: An Analysis of Human Resilience in Romesh Gunesekara's Noontide Toll and Monkfish Moon

Anamika Biswas

NET and GATE Qualified

Independent Researcher

After the outbreak of Elam War in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009, it took only a few years for the Sri Lankan forces to defeat the Tamil separatist guerrilla or LTTE. After that war the country seems to be standing at the cross-roads bewildered as to the direction it should take regarding the post war peace building and attempts to sort out the ethnic cohesion and inclusive developments. The end of a civil war does not necessarily mean the end of ethno-political cohesion; rather it redefines the war in the condition of no war. Romesh Gunesekera’s Noontide Toll (2014) and “Monkfish Moon” (1994) revisits the scars of war and the problems of reconstruction in the context of civil war, and highlights the gaps and conflicts in the process of nation building. It incorporates death, memory, trauma as a tool to project that conflict and interrogates the past, present and future of a nation. A psychological approach to the text will examine the disruptive experiences that impact the individual’s emotional faculty and their perception of the external world. In the background of official history, the private history which remains always hidden comes out in the spotlight with Romesh Gunesekera’s novels. State takes up the strategy of total amnesia and oblivion to rebuild itself through glimmers of hope, which is in contrast with the post war traumatic disorder that the people face after the war in the process of rehabilitation. This paper intends to highlight the complexities in re-building the state in an aftermath situation through the lens of “Monkfish Moon” (1994) and “Noontide Toll” (2014).War evokes a duality of experiences among individuals and societies, characterized by profound trauma

and enduring hope. This paper explores how war simultaneously inflicts psychological wounds and fosters resilience, examines the interplay between trauma and hope, and discusses strategies for nurturing hope amidst adversity to facilitate healing and peacebuilding.

Key Words: Trauma, War, Hope, Resilience, Socio-cultural Alienation, Loneliness, Fragmented existence, Torn relationships.

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