Echoes of Partition: Embodied Memory and Fragmented Identities in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What the Body Remembers

Abstract

 Shauna Singh Baldwin's novel What the Body Remembers (1999) explores trauma through the pain associated with Partition of India and also delves into the construction of trauma as a deeply physical and psychological experience that leaves permanent impressions on women's bodies and psyches. The author presents devastating collective trauma of Partition through the perspectives of female characters whose bodies become battlegrounds for competing religious, political, and patriarchal forces.  The novel reveals dehumanized historical accounts of Partition and emphasizes on the gendered dimensions of communal violence. This paper analyses multiple perspectives, embodied memory and the metaphor of body to illustrate fresh perspectives about Partition literature and trauma narratives, with particular attention to how historical suffering becomes inscribed upon the physical body.