The main aim of the article is to analyze Joanna Bator's novels (Piaskowa Góra, Chmurdalia) from the perspective of intergenerational inheritance of trauma (postmemory). The author focuses on such aspects of trauma as dissociation, imprisonment in the past, the compulsion to repeat traumatic events and the difficulty of articulating a complicated past. In Joanna Bator's novels, trauma is particularly clearly manifested in the area of motherhood. The article analyzes how it affects relations between women in the family, with a particular focus on the biological aspects of trauma inheritance (epigenetics) and relational trauma. It describes the mechanisms that accompany trauma resulting from sexual violence. The author incorporates family systems theory and attachment theory and mentalization into the novel's analysis. Furthermore, it takes a look at the characteristics of the third generation, which is able to integrate the difficult past into the family narrative and reintegrate its history, and thus break the transmission of intergenerational trauma.
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