An Analysis Of Porter’s Ship Of Fools In The Light Of Trauma Theory

Katherine Anne Porter is widely acknowledged as one of the most distinguished writers of short stories of the mid-twentieth century in American literary history.Ship of Fools is her only novel,which was written intermittently in nearly thirty years.Previous critics incline to discuss the artistic features,feminist perspective and ethical ideas of this novel,neglecting its significance in psychological interpretation.This thesis is an attempt to explore the novel with trauma theory,trying to reveal different kinds of traumas suffered by characters in the novel by analyzing their traumatic experiences and symptoms.This analysis finds that both adults and children in the novel have traumatic experiences and expose some traumatic symptoms,such as compulsive repetition,communication barrier,fear of intimacy,etc.These traumas mainly result from their lack of parental love in childhood,failure in loving people around and conflict in family and the influence of some inherent social opinions,such as patriarchal thoughts,racial prejudice and class division,which cause them to lose innocence at an early age and to be unable to love in social relationships.Meanwhile,these traumatic experiences incur uncompromisable social conflicts.Eventually,human interaction is influenced and the whole society becomes indifferent and loveless due to these traumas.Through analyzing these traumas,this thesis can help broaden the understanding of Porter’s humanitarian concern over human beings’ condition and psychology in modern society.