Reflections On Trauma In Martin Amis's Time's Arrow,or The Nature Of The Offense

Martin Amis is one of the renowned writers in the contemporary British literature.His great fame of “a genius in literature” owes much to his debut The Rachel Papers published in 1973,which also won him the Somerset Maugham Award the next year.Since then,Amis has created a series of works.Time's Arrow,or the Nature of the Offense is one of his masterpieces published in 1991,in which Amis tells the story of the protagonist-Tod Friendly reliving his life as a Nazi criminal.The backward narrative style creates a dramatic irony but with deeper trauma in the novel,revealing that dark history of genocidal atrocity during the World War II.This thesis is to discuss the reflections on trauma in Time's Arrow by using the trauma theory,through the protagonist's backing forward life,aiming to reveal the great damage and influence of the Nazi atrocity to humanity and human beings.Being a Nazi criminal,the real identity of Tod Friendly,the novel's main character,has been gradually exposed along with his “progressing” to the “future”(the past actually)and his identities as a Nazi doctor and a perpetrator to the Jews push the whole novel to its climax.However,although Tod Friendly is a slaughterer,he suffers from deep trauma both mentally and physically,for his bloody past left him with haunting fear,repeated dreams,all of which torture him psychologically.To escape from the judge,Tod changes his identity into several ones but only to be lost as a killer and a healer paradoxically.The Jews,as the victims,get “rebirth” through“creation”,in contrast to the the ruin of the Nazis and the German Nation.The nature of the offense,again,warns the whole world that the reexamination of the unforgivable crimes is worthwhile and that the atonement and repentance still have a long way to go.