Involuntary Memory: Articulation of Trauma on Body and Consciousness in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s “Berita dari Kebayoran”

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-503-4_76How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Involuntary Memory; Trauma; Memory; Consciousness

Abstract

Considered as a literary work that represents the social reality of the revolutionary period, the short story “Berita dari Kebayoran” by Pramoedya Ananta Toer presents a portrait of post-revolutionary society interaction between socio-political issues and human vulnerability as individuals. This issue produces a form of disruption to the subject’s consciousness triggered by trauma. In this case, the trauma manifested is subtle and questions the subject’s identity. The social and personal contexts built in the story indicate that problems or conflicts that are possible to materialize put a subject in an exposed vulnerability and fragility. Based on the realistically written story, the discussion of trauma symbolism—the relevance of source, form, and identity—is the objective of the research, which indicates the position of trauma that is vulnerably constructed in the subject. This qualitative method research collects literary units based on the formal object and analyzes the data based on the theoretical perspectives used. The theoretical framework is Cathy Caruth’s conception of trauma-memory in literature. This theory is used to explain the phenomenon of trauma and memory of the subject: the interplay of past-present and consciousness-unconsciousness. The subject in the narrative experiences trauma as a result of the accumulation of negative perceptions and detrimental personal experiences. This trauma, in addition to being physically symbolized, is manifested through the recurrent emergence of involuntary memories, to the extent of intruding upon the subject’s thoughts via hallucinations.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuniardi Fadilah
AU  - Dewi Lestari
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/19
TI  - Involuntary Memory: Articulation of Trauma on Body and Consciousness in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s “Berita dari Kebayoran”
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Culture and Sustainable Development (ICOCAS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 666
EP  - 675
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-503-4_76
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-503-4_76
ID  - Fadilah2025
ER  -