A Study of Trauma in Jhumpa Lahiri's "A Temporary Matter"

Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories have been studied more or less as expressing the cultural conflicts and problems of living in a host land. However, this study hopes to open new horizons in studying works of Lahiri from a new point of view – that of trauma and traumatic studies, with the special focus on works of Cathy Caruth. Traditionally defined as the wounds to the body of a person in an event, the word trauma has come to be related with the mental problems resulting from being a participant in the events which happen so suddenly that the person would not have enough time to understand it. Cathy Caruth, following the ideas of Sigmund Freud, attributes the shock experienced by the people in a traumatic event to the fact that the people do not have an access to the reality of trauma, which necessitates its recurrence which would provide an opportunity for the same person to experience it again. This paper intends to have a view on the short story “A Temporary Matter” by Lahiri from the viewpoint of the trauma studies. It will clarify how the ideas expressed by Caruth and similar critics can be detected so well in this story – ideas such as the unconscious and incomplete meeting of the trauma by the people going through it and that in order to overcome the following problems and restless feelings, it would necessary for having the trauma re-experienced by the same person.