A Study On Untold Story From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Untold Story,published in 2011,was the fourth novel of a South Asian British writer,Monica Ali,who was originally from Bangladesh and emigrated with her family at the age of three.Ever since the novel was published,a series of controversial reviews on the novel have been followed.Untold Story is fictionally described as the brand new life of Princess Diana who goes undercover as Lydia.With the help of her former secretary,Princess Diana has plotted her fake death in the well-known car crash in Paris in 1997.She starts a new life,makes new friends and finds a new job to live on her own,as a civilian after the surgery in a small town of Midwest America,called Kensington,.It is here that she is faced with challenges and risks of her real identity being exposed.In actuality,the character Lydia just serves as a symbol of a group of female celebrities.Monica Ali is famous for her novels written about how immigrant women awaken their self-hood and fit themselves in a new environment.Unlike Ali's three former novels,Untold Story illustrates the hardship and sufferings of a female celebrity with an opening ending.This thesis aims to study and analyze Monica Ali's novel Untold Story from the perspective of trauma theory,mainly with the guidance of Cathy Caruth's and Judith Herman's trauma theories.This thesis consists of five chapters,exploring the female traumatic symptoms,the relevant causes as well as the remedies of traumas.Chapter one introduces the author Monica Ali,her novels as well as the literary reviews on Untold Story in brief.Besides,it also focuses on the comprehensive study on the trauma theory,which includes the development of trauma literature,the symptoms of traumas,the causes of female traumas as well as the appropriate treatments of traumas.Chapter two emphasizes the traumatic symptoms of Princess Diana's and Lydia's,including silence,depression,insanity and suicidal tendency.Chapter three falls on the analysis of the causes of traumas for Lydia in detail,illustrating how the public expectation and pressure oppresses a female celebrity's life and describes the negative effect of being regarded as “otherness”.Additionally,the maternal factor is alsoessential.Chapter four elaborates on the treatments of trauma and states the useful and effective approaches to healing traumatic scars,covering writing and love remedies for Lydia.Chapter five emerges the conclusion to review my investigation and research and presents the value of studying female traumas theoretically and practically.At last,with an open ending,Lydia keeps swimming to a vision of her former secretary Lawrence,which gives the public a warning and arouses the concerns for female celebrities so that the traumatized female celebrities will recover from traumas soon and begin to lead an optimistic life.