“To give form to what cannot be comprehended”: Trauma in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow

Abstract

The primary objective of this article is the analysis of trauma in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow. It is argued that through the deployment of experimental literary techniques (particularly destabilized and non-linear narratives) these two novels offer valuable insights into the mechanisms of a traumatized mind and help to understand the uncertain sense of the self experienced by those who suffer from traumatic memories.