Intersecting Disability and Trauma: a Study of Identity Metamorphosis in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People

Abstract

The motive of this paper is to examine identity as a metaphor of change in the interface of trauma and disability study. The creation of identity and meaning in disability study, especially caused by disasters like chemical leakage, is reformulated by the effect of traumatic situations in the socio-political-psychological existence. Identity gets divided into post-human combination of ‘self’ and ‘other’. It is also reframed by the memory of past in contrast with present, and by the allegorical existence of dream and reality. Such is in the case of Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007), which represents the tragedy caused by Bhopal Gas disaster. It reflects on the modification of identity, especially in the character of Animal (a disabled victim), springing from normal to paranormal entity due to the memory of traumatic night. There are other characters such as Somraji and Maa Francis, who collectively suffer from identity crisis due to the memory of ‘that night’. Thus, the formation of identity varies over the experience of traumatic events of ‘that night’.