Paul Goma: literature as symbolic justice. Maternal trauma and its projection on female characters

Abstract

This paper examines, for the first time, the underground psychic transfer of adolescent trauma – triggered by the arrest and humiliation of Paul Goma’s mother by the Securitate – into the writer’s literary work. The study argues that the experience endured at the age of 13 profoundly shaped Goma’s image of female characters characters in his novels. Moreover, the author developed an extensive cycle of novels – ”The Cycle of Women” – with central female protagonists, dedicated to women and bearing women's titles. By representing the destinies of women subjected to abuse during the Stalinist, Ceaușescu, and post-communist periods, Goma assumes literature as a form of symbolic justice. Through this original perspective, the article pays tribute to Paul Goma, who, on October 2, 2025, would have turned 90 years old.