Abstract:

This paper examines the psychological consequences of bereavement and emotional neglect on Wanda, the young daughter of Bianglang and Melamon in L. H. Pde's Khasi novel Tang Ma Phi Khun Baieid. Reading the character through attachment theory and the concept of cumulative trauma, the study isolates two events that structure her emotional collapse: the violent death of her mother by poisoning, and the sustained emotional unavailability of her surviving parent. The paper argues that these two wounds are not merely additive but compounding — the first removes Wanda's primary attachment figure, while the second forecloses the possibility of repair, converting acute grief into chronic despair and, finally, into suicidal ideation. Wanda's silence throughout the novel is read not as narrative incidental but as symptom: the muteness of a child whose distress has no available listener. The paper concludes that the novel functions as a social critique, indicting a domestic and political order in which adult ambition renders a child's inner life invisible.

Keywords:

child psychology, attachment theory, cumulative trauma, parental bereavement, emotional neglect, Khasi literature, suicidal ideation.

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