Lizoanca, wounds and cruel reality

Abstract

Physical and mental aggression constantly inflicted on an individual at any age is associated with the concept of torture. Torture, in its inherent sense, refers to the physical suffering caused by repeated aggression. While from the 13th to the 17th century torture used to serve the church or the army, it was later adopted for private situations as deliberate suffering inflicted by one person on another. The deliberate infliction of physical or mental suffering on an individual, especially a child, extends far beyond the public sphere and may be explained by inhumane impulses that are either pathological or hereditary. 

Doina Ruști's novel, “Lizoanca at 11”, is a very good example in this sense. It follows the destiny of a child, wounded both by her parents and by Romanian society after the communist period; this child’s trauma is connected to those experienced by the other heroes. By repetitively returning to the age of 11, they relive their own unhealed wounds, affording us to talk about a rather serious problem: the persistence of trauma across generations and its social implications. Starting from the theoretical references offered by Caty Caruth, we intend to underline that trauma is not understood as a wound inflicted on the body, but on the mind. It is not an event that, like a wound, heals over time, but something that imposes itself, repeatedly, returning to the brutal event which provoked this trauma and maintaining it.

Whether read for the first time or revisited, the story of the 11-year-old girl in Doina Ruști's best-known novel, continues to shock its readers. It is a story that transcends realism and naturalism, fitting into the genre of childhood trauma literature, a field that is attracting increasing attention from researchers today. Viewed through this lens, Doina Ruști's novel offers profound insights. The narrative is realistic, with vivid characters and a portrayal of poverty and lack of education intertwined with corruption, selfishness, and neglect. This creates an atmosphere that drives Eliza to run away from home and become a prostitute. The novel aims to present the characters' actions and behaviours from an external perspective, without delving into psychological interpretations or explanations. This objective, almost camera-like focus, gradually reveals the unfolding events, with the characters portrayed as neither entirely positive nor negative. The emphasis is placed entirely on the transformations in the child’s psyche, shaped by her interactions with a predominantly adult environment. This allows readers to trace the thought processes of the novel’s central female protagonist. In its third re-edition, the novel introduces a significant addition, concluding the previously 'indecisive' open ending with an epilogue where hope no longer has a place, and Lizoanca’s 'mute scream' fills every space.