Trauma and Recovery in Anuradha Roy’s The Folded Earth: A Psychoanalytic Study

Abstract

This paper applies Judith Herman’s theory of Trauma and Recovery to the novel The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy in order to understand how the protagonist, Maya, deals with her traumatic experience. Maya loses her husband, Michael, in a mountain accident, and she is left alone to deal with the trauma of loss. Herman’s theory, a triad framework comprising the three stages of safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection as part of the process of recovery from trauma, offers a viable platform for a scholarly examination from a psychoanalytic perspective. The novel is structured around Maya’s retreat to the Himalayan hill town of Ranikhet. This structure is reflective of Herman’s roadmap to recovery from trauma. Maya’s relocation and emotional withdrawal represent the first phase. Her gradual engagement with new relationships, particularly with Diwan Sahib and Veer, and her internal confrontation with Michael’s memory reflect the second phase. Betrayal and the reactivation of grief through her discovery of Veer’s complicity in Michael’s death becomes the third phase, which also complicates the recovery process. The analysis conducted in this paper shows that the novel The Folded Earth emerges as a narrative that focuses on trauma’s lingering aftershocks and the fragile, often non-linear, paths toward healing in both personal and socio-historical contexts.