A Trauma Study Of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest-Trauma And Reconstruction Of American Indian Identity

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, published in 1962, is American novelist Ken Kesey’s masterpiece. Set in a mental hospital, the novel relates the transformation of the American Indian of mixed blood Chief Bromden from a deaf mute to an active hero. Upon its publication, the novel enjoyed immediate acclaim and Ken Kesey was respected as one of the leaders of counter-culture and the book has become a classic to challenge the absurdity of the authority. Some researches have been done at home and abroad on this novel from the perspectives of the theme and narrative technologies, while the research from the perspective of traumatic theory has not been found yet.The thesis attempts to interpret the protagonist Bromden’s trauma from the perspective of the trauma theory as well as narratology. The catastrophic American Indian traumatic history shapes the narrator and protagonist’s perception of the world. In the fictional descriptions, Ken Kesey portrays the effect of trauma and the suffering of Bromden whose struggle with his personal trauma symbolically correlates to the struggle of modern Native Americans to survive the traumatic history. Through his narration afterward, Bromden’s recovery process set an example for the traumatic especially those belonging to the American Indian group to overcome the consequences of traumatic experiences. The way to overcome the traumatic effect for individual is to reexamine the traumatic events, mourn the past and face the reality so as to make reorientation to society; the strategy for the reconstruction of American Indian identity is that they should let go of the memory of the political violence in history, mourn the past, face the reality and plan the future. On the premise of maintaining the ethnic traditional culture, they should actively promote the fusion of traditional and mainstream culture, preserving their traditional culture while keeping pace with the times, so that they can gain an everlasting living and development in today’s society.