Social Recognition, Identity Dislocation, and Constrained Agency in Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar: A Trauma-Informed Textual Analysis
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Abstract
Traumatic experiences can unsettle a person’s sense of continuity and belonging, particularly when violence is followed by rejection from significant others. This study examines the representation of identity in Puro, the protagonist of Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar, through qualitative textual analysis supported by a thematic-network approach. Selected passages concerning abduction, familial rejection, imposed religious and marital identities, displacement, belonging, and Puro’s response to Laajo’s victimization were organized into basic, organizing, and global themes. The global theme, “Identity and Trauma: A Reciprocal Relationship,” comprises four organizing themes: trauma disrupts identity; identity shapes the appraisal of trauma; identity may enable or constrain adaptation; and trauma becomes entangled with self-understanding. The analysis focuses on the interaction between personal memory and social recognition, arguing that Puro’s identity disruption is intensified when her family refuses to restore her former relational position. Her efforts to help Laajo and her final decision are interpreted as forms of agency and solidarity within constraint, not as evidence that the consequences of violence have been resolved. The article does not claim that trauma, identity, or agency have been overlooked in existing scholarship on Pinjar; rather, it offers a focused synthesis of social recognition, contested identity, and unresolved agency. As a reading of fiction, the analysis supports conceptual interpretation but cannot establish clinical processes or outcomes in trauma survivors
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