Witnessing Trauma

The violence of war has long been understood as a source of trauma since the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in war soldiers during the world wars. Contemporary discourse on trauma, as well as the literature that portrays trauma, has focused on the experiences of the victim-survivors and, more recently, the perpetrators. Yet there is a third party that must be considered: the bystanders. Herman’s assertion that the bystander cannot remain neutral underscores the ethical imperative inherent in all occurrences of trauma. In this chapter, I examine the role of the bystander and his ethical responsibility in two works of fiction by Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner and And the Mountains Echoed , before turning to the reader’s ethical imperative as a literary bystander. More precisely, this chapter underscores the impact of bystanders as agents for social transformation in the context of the traumatic violence of the War in Afghanistan.