Unclaimed Experiences: Identity and Trauma in Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl and Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death

Abstract

Trauma, shaped by experience, alters a person's identity, especially how they perceive and 
position themselves in contemporary society. The interconnection between identity and trauma 
explains how traumatic experiences such as displacement, discrimination and violence define an 
individual. This paper examines how traumatic experiences shape the protagonists' identities in 
Helen Oyeyemi's Icarus Girl and Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death. The novels show how 
trauma leads to conflicting identities while opening doors for human growth through the 
experiences of the protagonists. The study's theoretical basis for analyzing the novels is Cathy 
Caruth's trauma theory. According to Caruth's idea of belatedness, trauma is experienced belatedly 
and its repercussions manifest long after the traumatic event as survivors make sense of initially 
inexplicable events. It concludes that although trauma upends a person's identity, it can also 
strengthen resilience, resulting in self-discovery and the creation of a fresh sense of self. The 
degree of this change is contingent upon how traumatic events are perceived by the individual and 
the community in which they take place.