Trauma and its Representation in Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing

This thesis analyzes the representation of trauma in Eimear McBride’s 2013 novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. Since its publication, the academic interest in Girl has continued to grow, with Girl almost exclusively being interpreted in light of the author’s apparent modernist and Joycean influence. However, recent scholarship has moved the discussion towards the necessary readings of the novel in the context of contemporary girlhood and representations of trauma. The academic discussion of girlhood and trauma focuses primarily on the social and historical context of the text and, indeed, the workings of the author’s stylistic choices; yet I would argue that further discussion is needed on how the narrative, narration, and the narrator works to represent trauma and its effects. This thesis, therefore, argues that the discussion needs to look beyond its apparent connection to modernism and the assessment of the intention of the author in order to analyze how the text is engaging in the representation of trauma. For this to happen, this thesis will concentrate on the workings of the novel’s narrative, narration, and its narrator through a theoretically informed close reading and critical assessment of three key scenes from the novel. Literary Trauma Theory will provide the necessary critical framework for the analysis of trauma and its representation. Extensive attention will be given to the narrative by focusing on the narration’s focalization, the structure and form of the narrator’s language, and some of the keywords within the narrative. Ultimately, this informed analysis shows that not only does the narration reveal what is occurring in the narrative through its representation of trauma and traumatic events, but also that trauma also manifests itself in the very structure and form of the narration