Trauma, Gendered Violence and Coping-mechanisms in Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us

Abstract: This essay analyses the representation of trauma and gendered violence in Colleen Hoover’s novel It Ends With Us. To do this, trauma theory and the notion of gendered violence are applied in the analysis, as well as Dorrit Cohn’s ideas of diary novels, dissonant narrator and consonant narrator. The findings show that the protagonist, Lily’s, way of coping with her trauma and gendered violence during her teenage years, was to keep a diary, effectively using scriptotherapy. When that was not enough, however, she actively suppressed her problems. The essay also shows that Cohn’s ideas of dissonant and consonant narrator play a part in how Lily’s development is shown throughout the novel.