This thesis presents a psychoanalytic study of selected war fiction, with special reference to Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) by Marguerite Duras and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) by Khaled El-Hosseini as exemplary of war novels reflecting two distinctive historical, political, and cultural experiences. The novels are studied under the umbrella of Sigmund Freud’s trauma theory adopting qualitative, analytical, and comparative methodology. Hiroshima Mon Amour is written by the French novelist Margueritte, Duras, in which she portrays World War II and the destructive impact of the atomic bomb handling major themes revolving around the effect of trauma collectively and individually to reflect her desire to reveal how wars can destroy countries and subsequently induce psychic issues upon the individuals experiencing them. On the other hand, A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) is written by the Afghan American author Khaled El-Hosseini, illustrating the challenges and struggles of the Afghan People at the time of war and invasion from the Soviet invasion till the Taliban occupation through using his two female protagonists to depict different individual traumas experienced by the Afghan people. Thus, the novels selected are examined as representatives of the work of two authors belonging to different cultural and political backgrounds striving to trace the effect of the collective trauma induced by wars on the communal memory as well as the individual psyche of their witnesses.
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