Abstract:

Contemporary British theatre has been saturated with war narratives and the ensuing state of trauma in response to the chaotic atmosphere of the century. Besides a wide array of plays depicting the deleterious impact of war on returning soldiers, the contemporary stage has also witnessed performances embodying the personal and collective traumas of war-torn societies. Playwright of the multi-award-winning play Further than the Furthest Thing (2000), Zinnie Harris subtly treat different faces and consequences of war in their dramatic outputs. Among them, Harris’ Midwinter (2004) attempts to portray trauma of an unnamed war engraved on the bodies and psyches of the people from soldiers to children in an unnamed county. Drawing upon contemporary theories of trauma, this article interprets the different manifestations of war trauma in the characters of Midwinter and probes the difficulty of recovering trauma for the people who disavow the reality of war and trauma.

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