Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms of Sring Venka in Response to Sexual Trauma and PTSD in The Poppy War Series by R.F. Kuang

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to validate the thesis that Sring Venka, a character of Rebecca F. Kuang’s The Poppy War, a grim-fantasy series based on historical events of the 20th century China, uses maladaptive coping mechanisms (also known as immature defences) due to suffering from sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after rape. Nevertheless, although the series is popular in the mainstream media, the character of Venka is often overlooked or grossly misunderstood. This article opens with a brief synopsis of the series and current critical commentary with the emphasis on Venka. Second, I outline the theoretical aspects in order to understand the reasoning behind Venka’s trauma, PTSD, and, resulting from both, maladaptive coping mechanisms. In what follows, I expand on how Venka’s trauma, PTSD, and maladaptive coping mechanisms are presented in the series and how they affect her. Lastly, I utilise the results of the analysis in the concluding section in order to explore several of its implications.