TRAUMA IN HALOCAUST LITERATURE AS PORTRAYED IN WILLIAM STYRON’S "SOPHIE’S CHOICE" (Pages 40-44) by Mrs. Jyothilaxmi. T * and Dr. K. Shibila** in THE ENGLISH RESEARCH EXPRESS / ISSN:2321-1164 (Online); 2347-2642 (Print)

Holocaust literature is usually described as a genre defined by its subject-the destruction of Jews by Germany Many writers have written about the indescribable world of ghettos and the horrors in the Nazi concentration camps. Holocaust has been the germinal for trauma theory. Trauma theory is concerned with how the traumatic experiences of the authors have affected their literary works. Trauma is an assimilated event that shatters one’s identity. Fragmentation and their dissociation are the direct causes of trauma. Elie Wiesel, an American-Romanian writer has played a major role in spreading the term, Holocaust. His Sophie’s Choice belongs to the genre of Holocaust literature as it focuses on the horror experiences during the World War II and the catastrophe of Jewry. It is a testimony to the atrocities of Holocaust. Styron depicts the trauma experienced by Sophie Zawistowka, a survivor of holocaust who has to spend twenty months in Auschwitz. Due to her horrific traumatic sufferings, she is tormented by an extreme feeling of guilt. At the end, she commits suicide. All her dreams, life, faith, innocence, future and humanity are shattered away by the Nazi occupation of Poland. Keywords: indescribable world, Holocaust literature, the World War II, commits suicide, Trauma theory etc.