College of Social Sciences and Languages
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Item Cyclic Causation of Conflict and Mental Illness in Selected Tigrigna and Amharic Novels(Mekelle University, 2025-04-28) Haftu Kahsay BrhanuThis study aims to investigate the cyclic causation of conflict and mental illness in purposively selected Tigrigna and Amharic novels. Specifically, the study was made to identify mental illnesses portrayed in the novels, to show how conflict causes mental illness and vice versa, and to examine the dialectic causal development of internal and external conflicts. It is a qualitative study which employed textual analysis as a method and causal pluralism as a theoretical framework. The causation in conflict is framed by BHN model while the causation in mental illness is framed by BPSS model. The finding shows that unmet basic human needs lead characters to conflict and thereby to various mental illnesses which in turn cause conflicts. It is also found out that intrapersonal, interpersonal and intergroup conflicts result in compromised basic human needs which trigger various mental illnesses. In all the texts under study, family background and relationship is the center of many of the problems that cause the conflicts which lead to mental illnesses like stress, anxiety, conduct disorder, PTSD, narcissistic personality disorder and schizophrenia. Moreover, migration, envy, conspiracy, sexual violence and substance abuse are also found to the major triggers of conflict and mental illness in the texts under study. It is concluded that the ways one perceives himself/herself, understands the family problems, handles conflicts significantly determine the cyclic causation of conflict and mental illness. The study also implies that fictional representation of victim’s life is found to be conducive to portray the cyclic causal relation between conflict and mental illness due to the rich potential of literary works to express the whole person in a plotted manner. The fact that most of the problems that cause conflict and mental illnesses emerge from within the family indicates that a lot is needed to be done to improve the quality of life at family level. All the important aspects of health (biological, psychological, social and spiritual) are strongly related to family relationship. Thus, it is only when a family is changed that changes at communal, societal and national levels could be realized. Finally, I would like to indicate to those who conduct their studies on serious human concerns like conflict and mental illness to utilize the rich potential of literary works like novels so as to address multifaceted problems in a holistic manner. Further studies also need to be done on other genres of literature