On The Rebirth Of The Traumatized In The Blind Assassin From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet,novelist,literary critic,essayist,and environmental activist.As a novelist,many of her works give a considerable attention to culture,society,and individual mental conditions,especially to the last one.The Blind Assassin is just a good example of the point.The Blind Assassin is actually about the traumatic story of Chase family.Iris Chase,the main character,recalls the story of the family,reflecting them in the present.In fact,the novel shows the facts of trauma in real life through the individual trauma.Atwood is encouraging trauma victims in real life to face with the past bravely,to release the psychological burden in the narrative process,and to try to start a new life.This thesis gives an interpretation about the theme of victims in the novel The Blind Assassin on the grounds of trauma theory.It consists of six chapters.The first chapter presents the introduction to the author Margaret Atwood and The Blind Assassin,literature review and the structure of the thesis.The next chapter expounds trauma theory,which constitutes the theoretical basis of the thesis.It falls into two parts,including the development of trauma theory and the introduction to some well-known trauma theorists.The third chapter concentrates on the interpretation of traumatic symptoms of trauma victims on the basis of the novel,Norval Chase,Iris Chase and Laura Chase.The fourth chapter respectively studies the causes of Norval’s,Iris’s and Laura’s trauma.It falls into three parts.The first part studies the causes of Norval’s trauma from the perspective of society.The causes for Norval’s trauma mainly include gruesome war experience and pointless post-war life.The second part illustrates the cause of Iris’s trauma from the perspective of family.Iris’s ignored childhood is the source of all her sufferings.The experience that she was ignored in childhood not only traumatizes herself but is a contributor to her other trauma.The last part focuses on the cause of Laura’s trauma.As for Laura,her blind and idealistic selflessness attributes to her sufferings.Laura is so eager and blind to engage in sacrifice which causes herself to fall victim.The fifth chapter illustrates the ways for traumatic characters in the novel to try to heal themselves.This chapter concludes three part.It interpreters Norval’s regression into the enjoyment of the pleasures of life and Laura’s escaping to new places to do voluntary work or pursuing love to evade the terrible trauma.It also illustrates Iris’s effective therapeutic writing process.The last chapter is the conclusion of the thesis.It sums up the preceding analysis about Norval’s,Iris’s and Laura’s traumatic symptoms,causes of trauma and their different ways of processing trauma and finally reaches the conclusion that the narrative is helpful for trauma victims to heal themselves.Furthermore,it also points out that the thesis leaves several topics open for further study.