Cycles of Trauma in Chekhov’s Unregulated Worlds: Analyzing “Gusev,” “Misery” And “The Black Monk” through Caruth and Durkheim

Abstract

Chekhov’s “Gusev,” “Misery” and “The Black Monk” feature the characters Gusev, Pavel, Iona and Kovrin as individuals trekking particular traumatic courses in varying capacities, in the face of disorderly and indifferent social systems. Critical works focusing on these elements in these texts’ analysis are not difficult to find and these works do provide insight into the nature of these characters’ psychological anguish. However, such critical lenses never incorporated the theories of Cathy Caruth or Emile Durkheim in analyzing these elements. This paper aims to capitalize on this opening and analyze the protagonists of the mentioned texts taking into consideration Caruth’s ‘trauma theory’ and Durkheim’s concept of ‘anomy’ – which describes normless, non-regulated societal conditions. The purpose is to find how the characters of these stories demonstrate traumatic symptoms and how these symptoms, & the trauma itself, correspond with the anomic conditions of society. Thus, the theoretical and conceptual framework is provided by Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory, along with the adjacent concepts of ‘repetition compulsion,’ flashbacks & hallucination and the necessity of recognition in surviving trauma - as theorized in her Unclaimed Experience. Additionally, Durkheim’s contemplations on anomy, as discussed in his Suicide, with its definitive, social and psychological implications, augment the framework even further. Taking findings from existing research into account, the discourses of the three stories have been analyzed in light of such theoretical and conceptual understandings to assess the nature of these characters’ trauma, by tracing its symptoms, in the face of anomic social conditions. This paper’s investigation of the characters in Chekhov’s “Gusev,” “Misery” and “The Black Monk” through the lens of Caruth’s trauma theory and Durkheim’s notion of anomy reveals that – these characters, representing traumatized individuals in normless structures, are obligated to endure their traumatic cycles, illustrating the effects of an anomic society where trauma circulates in cycles of delusion, fractured memories and disregard.