The Effect of Trauma on Personality and Choices of Individuals in “Conscious Birth” by Alice Walker

The first wave of trauma theories with its pioneers, including Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman, and Geoffrey Hartman, was raised in the ۱۹۹۰s. This model of trauma theory goes beyond the psychological analysis and tries to examine trauma in literature, society, and culture. It represents trauma as an unrepresentable and unspeakable memory. Following the first wave of trauma theory, a new pluralistic model was raised to challenge the irrepresentability of traumatic events. Accordingly, Laurie Vickroy focuses on the narrative aspects of trauma. She argues that beyond the concept of the unspeakable, numerous traumatic responses develop the complexity of experience, which are articulated through behaviors, bodies, provisional identities, and survival strategies. Most of Alice Walker’s works move around the personal and traumatic experiences of various characters, which results in shaping and altering their identity. Though, this paper aims to analyze the effects of Anne Gray’s traumatic experiences on her personality and personal choices in Walker’s “Conscious Birth” from her The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart collection of short stories. The findings show that social and cultural traumatic experiences considerably influence individuals’ thoughts, choices, and identities.