ABSTRACT
The present paper offers a feminist study of intergenerational trauma and madness in Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair (2005), examining the narrative and symbolic aspects of female psychological suffering. It draws upon the works of Cathy Caruth, Julia Kristeva, and Judith Herman to analyse the psychological fragmentation and repression associated with traumatic memory, maternal grief, and religious guilt. This paper interprets the repressed trauma and emotional detachment present in the character of Jessie, and her mother Nelle's descent into madness, utilizing Caruth's theory of belatedness, Kristeva's theory of abjection, and Herman's recovery model. By using these theories, this study illustrates Jessie's journey from silence to empowerment, and Nelle's self-mortification as a form of resistance against patriarchal religious structures. The present paper provides a critique of the cultural, religious institutions, that marginalize women's suffering, and portrays madness as a result of historical silencing and a site to reclaim spirituality. Kidd's novel foregrounds the gendered transmission of trauma and the possibility of transformation through memory and self-expression. This paper thus contributes to feminist literary criticism by reinterpreting madness as a symbolic form of resistance and exploring healing as an act of narrative and maternal reclamation.
