The Overlap of Žižek’s Trauma Theory and Magic Realism in the Novel The Dead Dolphin by Hassan Bahrami

The term “trauma” is used to refer to a situation in which a person’s psyche is harmed by a traumatic event. Žižek argues that trauma is the result of unexpected intrusion of the Real (event) into the Symbolic (symbolization) and acquires meaning in the structure of the Deferred Action. People’s reaction to any traumas is acting out or working through. In the acting out process, the patient displays sign of mental disorders like nightmares, yet in the working through, the patient hides mental suffering in the subconscious and fantasies and transfers the sufferings to another place by means of creating a fetish narration. Regarding the psychological nature of the trauma, the patient is unable to convert it into the Symbolic, and this psychological problem can be recognized only by its symptoms in the person. However, psychologists believe that the only treatment for trauma is to change it to the Symbolic. This study aims to investigate the way of representing trauma in the novel The Dead Dolphin by Hassan Bahrami. The findings show that he has successfully overcome this challenge by utilizing magic realism and its imperceptible combination with trauma features. Through combining local myths with trauma and taking advantage of their dual and contradictory nature, Bahrami has created a strong link between trauma and magic realism and portrayed the character’s trauma. This study proves that magic realism is a proper technique for writing psychoanalytic novels to represent and symbolize people’s trauma.