The lıfelong ımpacts of adolescent trauma ın the saffron kıtchen

Abstract

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. Keywords: Trauma, The Saffron Kitchen, Yasmin Crowther