The Fragmented Self in 21st-Century Narratives: Identity, Memory, and Trauma in Contemporary Fiction

This chapter examines the fractured construction of identity in contemporary fiction, focusing on how trauma, memory, and narrative instability shape the fragmented self. Drawing on trauma theory and narrative psychology, it explores how four significant novels-Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner-interrogate the coherence of selfhood. Through an analysis of temporal dislocation, embodied trauma, and the ethical burden of memory, the chapter argues that these narratives mirror the disjunctions of modern identity. The fragmented self becomes not merely a symptom of trauma but a metaphor for resilience and reconstruction. In an era defined by displacement, loss, and guilt, the literature of fragmentation reveals the enduring human capacity to create meaning from brokenness.
Keywords
Fragmented self; Trauma; Memory; Contemporary Fiction; Identity; Narrative form; Guilt; Postmodernism