Harold Pinter: Traumatic Neuroses and Nervous Shock in Ashes to Ashes

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to present the hidden features of Post Ttraumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) in one of the major works of Harold Pinter, English playwright and 2005 Nobel Prize winner for literature. The selected play is Ashes to Ashes which was written in 1996. This play has been analyzed from the perspective of Trauma Theory which refers back to the Freudian psychoanalysis in second half of the nineteenth century where the effects of trauma depicted the trembling shocks of a mental and physical wound on the memory. In the 1860s, Sigmund Freud coined the terms Traumatic Neuroses and Nervous Shock as a reaction to the hysteric and trance states of those people who suffered from a mentally wounded psyche in deathly violent conditions. To prove our contention, we choose the main motifs of traumatic neurosis such as Hysteria, Trance states, Violent mood swings, Amnesias, Partial paralysis of the body, Anxiety and physical pain, Shell shock, Blocking of memory, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).