Trauma and Memory in Jack Hilton Cunningham's Women and War

Abstract

War always leaves its indelible imprints on all realms of life and it produces sad memorable stories that cause an endless suffering. It is commonplace that women are susceptible to the atrocious nature of war and they have to pay high costs in time of war.  They never forget how they endure the great brunt of war. Unimpeachably, the American wars have caused a great sensation and controversy at home and internationally, for these wars have never brought security and stability to all the parties concerned. Rather, they have brought to the fore what is shocking, negative, and destructive. The women in particular are often seriously affected during the outbreak of armed conflicts and civil strife. The traumatic experiences of women are encapsulated in a number of stories which betray the impact of war on the individual and the group just the same. Such women’s thrilling narratives are best mirrored in contemporary literature. Jack Hilton Cunningham’s Women and War (2012) demonstrates and documents women’s reactions to the ghastly phantoms of war. This paper examines how  Cunningham presents the female experience in his play Women and War. He weaves into the structure of the play many stories that showcase the horrific nature of modern American wars which brought destruction, chaos, and disintegration. These stories are closely related to female characters in this play. The research adopts a psychological approach to analyze the text under question, focusing on the PTSD syndromes that follow the catastrophic  experiences of war.