This study aims to investigate the roles of trauma in characters and plot of Roxanne Gay’s An Untamed State as well as reflections of Caruthian and Pluralistic trauma theory in the novel. The methodology employed in this analysis is Ricoueran Hermenetics which includes steps of distantion and appropriation. In distantion, narrative analysis of plot and characters are utilized to come to an objective reading of the text. In appropriation, living communication between the result of narrative analysis and external information namely Caruthian and Pluralistic theories of trauma as well as relevant articles are conducted. The research finds that trauma plays an important roles in characters as it changes and defines their personalities and lives. In the protagonist, it causes injuries on the body and mind. All of the characters analyzed experience a shift in self perceptions, relationships, and external world views as a result of trauma. These shifts are seen as both negative and positive. Trauma also plays an important role in plot. It is seen as a source of conflicts wherein an individual trauma is the motivation of actions of violence which traumatized another. These traumas are the consequence of poverty, injustice, and economic disparity. Trauma also demands the plot to be arranged in non-chronological order, creates plot unity, and is the expression of the plot. There are reflections of both Caruthian and Pluralistic trauma theories instead of only one. In addition, there is a conflation of both models of trauma in the impact of trauma on the protagonist’s evolution of self perception.
