The founder of literary trauma theory, Caruth (1995), defined trauma as an event that stays in the

victim's consciousness but cannot be uttered. It definitely fragments identity and harms the
victim's mental health. The victim was unable to verbally explain his condition because his
astonished mind refused to comprehend what had happened. However, the victim's anxiety never
truly goes away, because traumatizing the environment causes problems with language and
identity. According to Caruth (1996), trauma is a harm that manifests through exposing hidden
realities. She asserts that literature and trauma share a similar goal in that they both address a
person's thinking. The founder of literary trauma theory, Caruth (1995), defined trauma as an
event that persists.

Vickroy (2002) explains trauma texts as testimonials represent the history and recover forgotten
memories. They help politically and socially suppressed people who cannot represent themselves
in public discourse, for instance, autobiographies of the survivors. She also argues that
contemporary fictional trauma narratives are a representation of traumas of war, poverty, slavery,
colonization, and domestic violence.

While listing elements of trauma fiction, Whitehead (2004) asserts that trauma can be presented
in the literature by following certain narrative techniques. In Trauma Fiction, she explains the
vital characteristics of a trauma narrative. She claimed that trauma narrative is not concerned
merely with the reminiscences of painful, stressful, and disturbing happenings; it is concerned
with the way trauma is conveyed and the explanations that help in its remembrance. She argues
about trauma fiction‟s techniques that how trauma fiction is written, and how it affects its
readers. She gave several narrative methods in trauma fiction and helped it become a great tool
to convey traumatic happenings. Intertextuality, repetition, memory places, fantastic, a hovering
voice in narrative, and choiceless choices are the main narrative techniques used in her text to
convey the meaning of trauma fiction. Baelo-Allue (2012) distinguished two types of trauma
novels: “psychic trauma novels which are related to mind of the people and cultural trauma
novels which are based on the social and cultural concerns of the happenings”. She claimed that
trauma fiction, like that of some postcolonial narratives, makes use of experimental forms as a
medium for communicating the unreality of trauma, while remaining faithful to the facts of
history. In her article on 9/11 novels, she argues that "Psychic trauma is anti-narrative since
victims cannot put into words what they experienced”.
Inayat Ullah (2016) examined Afghanis' trauma following the imposition of the global war on
terrorism. He focused on two outstanding books by Pakistani authors Hosseini and Rahimi: The
Kite Runners and Earth and Ashes. He examined characters' trauma in his study using a variety
of literary trauma theories. His research offers a historical portrait of Afghans who endured
trying circumstances during the war. In his work, he emphasizes how fiction portrays the history
that is unalterably recorded in the minds of traumatized people. His work was supported by
Caruth's literary trauma theory from Literature in the Ashes of History (2013), and he came to
the conclusion that traumatized people aid in understanding the past and augmenting history.

Saba Parizadeh (2019) argues that, n order to legitimize the indiscriminate destruction of that
territory and its inhabitants, war speech frequently portrays the people and the geography of rival
nations as inherently dangerous or menacing. Building on this concept, this essay examines
environmental Othering, or the war tactics of codification and change that turn other landscapes
into military zones, using Waheed and Aslam's works. Codification denotes the reduction of the
land's ecological complexity and the creation of a hostile and threatening environment. As
evidenced in the violent transformation of natural areas into deaths capes (The Collaborator) and
military outposts (The Blind Man's Garden), this codification gives way to transformation, in
which the land is reconstructed into a site of containment for the subjugation of hostile factions.

Sajed Husseini and Ehsan Baghaei (2020) have done research on trauma theory. The goal of their
research was to give a close reading of the protagonist's memories from Mohsen Hamid's The
Reluctant Fundamentalist in terms of an eclectic strategy for trauma portrayal. The idea of Freud
and Breuer that Judith Herman's idea of post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological trauma
(PTSD) and Jeffery Alexander's concept of cultural trauma as the theoretical foundation were for
their investigation. Psychological trauma refers to the intolerable, psychological traumas that
remain unhealable and indescribable on the issues unconsciousness. PTSD focuses on
problematic bodily symptoms. quick distraction, sleeplessness, and dipping in and out of prior
activities trauma-instigated recollections The effects of cultural trauma can be seen in the amount
of owing to a horrifying tragedy they have already endured, a group's collective identity.

Shahbaz and Rashid (2020) in their research examines painful experiences of a young girl in
Brown's fictitious story Drinking from a Bitter Cup. Their study examines a young girl's
traumatic experiences and emphasizes the situational and social trauma that she experienced.
This research examines the trauma brought on by the deaths of loved ones and sexual abuse
through a textual analysis of a few works of fiction utilizing Salmona and Vickory's theoretical
models of trauma. The study emphasizes the urgent issue of child sexual abuse and establishes
that children who experience such abuse are more likely to develop mental illnesses. Readers
learned about the unique traumas that people experience in a variety of circumstances via this
research.

Mehreen Zafar, Dr. Muhammad Ahsan and Dr. Zahoor Hussain (2020) have carried out research
on trauma. The study was aimed to investigate the trauma that Yasmeen's female characters go
through. In the genre of trauma fiction, M. Balaev (2014) described "the notion of trauma as sick
and horrific." The theoretical foundation for the descriptive and critical textual analysis of the
novel, which revealed the traumatic experiences of the main female characters Yasmeen, Irenie,
Celeste, and Mehrunissa, was offered by the insights from Bloom's Psychological Trauma
Theory (1999). Although the painful experiences of each character vary in scope and intensity,
all female characters have the horrific experiences of "Evolution's legacy," "Learned
helplessness," and "restricted acts."

Gen’ichiro Itakura (2020) writes that The Blind Man's Garden by Nadeem Aslam 2013, responds
to the racial discourses that have gained traction as a result of the "war on terror." By creating a
link between "known" and "unfamiliar" emotions, it tries to emotionally engage its audience. The
Blind Man's Garden employs "possibly novelettish or TV movie-like" narrative structures and
the "familiar" sensations they arouse—the components frequently used in affect-based late-
capitalist culture—contrary to common ideas of postcolonial literatures as forms of resistance.
But it departs from typical melodramatic tropes. It awakens our shared experience of post-9/11
media culture while granting emotional access to "unfamiliar" sensations and encloses our
communal rage in the personal script of guilt and wrath. The breadth of Aslam's writing is
attested to by this transmission of emotion.

Dr. Mamoona Yasmeen Khan, Fatima Noor, & Dr. Fariha Chaudhary (2021) have published
their research article Trauma, Identity, and Narrative in fiction: A Critique of The Blind Man’s
Garden as Trauma Fiction. The study aimed to explore how the theme of trauma is incorporated
in a narrative. The Blind Man's Garden by Nadeem Aslam served as the basis for this fictional
work, while Trauma Fiction by Ann Whitehead (2004) used as a tool to examine the
psychological state and trauma of Pakistani residents following the war on terror. The study's
conclusions showed that the topics in the chosen novel most effectively portray the trauma of
Pakistani society through the use of potent linguistic devices. It is also revealed that unpleasant
experiences are imbedded in people's minds, turning them into traumatized creatures. As a result,
the trauma experienced by a person influences society as a whole. The study calls for further
tales reflecting the cultural, social, and gender trauma of Pakistani culture to be investigated by
future scholars.

Ifrah Sajjad, Rana Abdul Munim Khan, Umair Manzoor (2022) have published research paper
Theorizing Repressed Emotions and Experiences in Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden.
The study aimed to explore the repressed emotions and experiences of characters in the novel.
It focused on the repressive psyche of the protagonist Mikal and his family due to Pakistan and
Afghanistan’s diverse social and political circumstances. The study mainly dealt with the
suppression of desires and emotions of all characters on two major levels that are on individual
and social levels. The work examined the experiences of the struggle of Naheed between love
and honor.