THE LIFELONG IMPACTS OF ADOLESCENT TRAUMA IN THE SAFFRON KITCHEN

Yıl 2015, Cilt: 4 Sayı: 2, 84 - 90, 01.12.2015

Ladan Amır Safaeı

Öz

Dividing an individual’s life cycle into eight stages, Erik
Erikson (1963, 1968) believes that adolescence period is one of the most
critical phases of life when youngsters question all their previously
experienced confusions and crises in childhood, and for the first time they
attempt to build up their initial form of identities. In this period, young
people seek for more independence and authority to be free to make their own
choices which might result in serious disputes and fights for dominance between
them and their parents who believe “their almost-adult children want nurturance
and need protection” (Donoghue, 2005). In many cultures, this bilateral
challenge over gaining dominance, recognition, and respect gives rise to
adolescents’ facing parental or societal aggression which is likely to “evoke
anger, humiliation, alienation, and depression” throughout their lives (Straus,
2009). As a result, they fail to establish “an achieved identity” (Erikson,
1963, 1968). This study is an attempt to investigate how teenage traumatic
experiences might leave a long-lasting influence on an individual’s identity
throughout his/her life. To examine the effects of parental and/or cultural
hostility on the process of identity development of youth, the life cycle of
Maryam- the Persian female protagonist in The
Saffron Kitchen written by Yasmin Crowther- is analyzed. This study will
primarily focus on Maryam’s distressful experiences that have generated from
her father’s authoritarian parenting style, the corporal and physical
punishments that he has applied on her, as well as the rape trauma that she has
experienced at the age of seventeen. This paper will manifest the consequences of
these aggressive stances during the process of her identity development.  

Anahtar Kelimeler

Trauma, The Saffron Kitchen, Yasmin Crowther

Kaynakça

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