Echoes of Unborn Lives: Trauma and Memory in Han Kang The White Book

Abstract

This research delves into themes of grief, trauma, and memory in Han Kang's The White Book. The story focuses on a sister who lived for only a few hours and the narrator's memory of her absence. The research applies Cathy Caruth's trauma theory, which defines trauma as an experience that is never fully accessed in the moment to allow reflection but returns later through memory, silence, or imagination. This research demonstrates that Han Kang employs white images, fragmented writing, and silence to represent unborn grief. White objects including snow, paper, and fabrics carry symbolic meanings of absence and mourning. The fragmented writing exemplifies memory’s brokenness while silence discovers its own language. The narrator also experiences the burden of survival by imagining the life her sister could have lived. This research proves that trauma connects to private and unseen loss and not just large emergency events like war or disasters. The White Book contributes to trauma studies by amplifying grief, which is typically silenced. It is a reminder that even though a life was short and fragile, it can have lasting echoes in both memory and literature. Ultimately, the novel mentions how absence can create identity, history, and imagination. The text also claims that literature can make mourning, something invisible, visible, through silence turned into testimony. Furthermore, the work creates a new imaginary space for the study of intimate traumas, which compels the reader to rethink how literature can serve as a record of pain and absence. Finally, this work adds to the field of trauma studies by connecting personal mourning with cultural memory.  

Keywords: Han Kang, The White Book, trauma theory, Cathy Caruth, memory, grief, murdered loss