Life After Being Raped: Trauma And Its Consequences

Abstract

Most of the people related to literature are certainly aware of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922). Though the poet used many allusions, one of the allusions, the myth of Philomela, applied in the second section of the poem, “A Game of Chess,” is very important for the present paper. In this myth, Philomela, a figure in Greek mythology, gets raped by her brother-in-law, Tereus, and eventually gets her tongue cut off in order to remain silent about the incident. Sexual violence against women is not new and it repeats itself again and again. Life after being raped is accompanied by trauma, identity crisis, shame, and guilt. This paper wants to examine various impact of trauma on the victims of sexual abuse especially rape. As one person is different from the other, the effect of trauma also differs across people. Life of a raped victim is not easy. It is very difficult to find the whole self, re-establish the self-identity, trust, and control again. The impact of trauma can be positive as well as negative. While some survivors achieve mental strength after recovering from the difficult situation, others may lose interest in life and feel worthless.  This paper uses concepts from Feminist Theory and Trauma Theory, to examine the context of sexual violence against women, and the aftermath of violence especially how trauma affects the victims.