Humor,Trauma And Initiation In A Gate At The Stairs

Lorrie Moore is an American short-story writer primarily known for her humorous language style and satirical realism.Her post 9/11 novel,A Gate at the Stairs,was a finalist for the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and for the Orange Prize for Fiction.Set in the backdrop of September 11 attacks,War in Afghanistan and Iraq war,this novel focuses on Tassie Keltjin,a Mid-western farm-bred girl,her painful journey of initiation during her college years.Tassie works as part-time babysitter for the twoyear-old biracial kid adopted by the Thornwood-Brinks.Her painful initiation is only achieved when she learns about the Thornwood-Brink couple’s secret past and experiences the abrupt departure of her lover,Reynaldo,and the death of Robert,her younger brother,in the War in Afghanistan.Yet her initiation shows more signs of skepticism about marriage,love and the Bush administration than expressing optimism about the future.Backed with humor theories,trauma theories and concepts in initiation story,this thesis aims to investigate how humor,trauma and its representation,relate to our understanding of Tassie’s initiation.The analysis will focus on the following three aspects: the function of humor during Tassie’s journey of initiation,the role that trauma plays in pushing forward Tassie’s initiation,and finally,the political and social concerns behind her initiation.Humor in this novel can be divided into verbal humor and situational humor.Tassie’s humorous language style underlines her course of growing up,and signifies her innocence and wisdom.Her penchant for wordplay acts as a cloak creating a cover for her loneliness and means of releasing sadness.The comic incongruities in situations enable Tassie to see the crumbling nature of the Thornwood-Brinks’ marriage and to realize the insidiousness of racism.Furthermore,in different situations,Tassie resorts to humor to satirize the insurgent crack-headed patriotism and liberal sanctimony.Humor,trauma and initiation are closely interconnected.The two families’ traumas,the trauma of the Thornwood-Brinks and the trauma of the Keltjins,prompt Tassie’s meditation on parental responsibility and the War in Afghanistan.Moore employs experimental narrative techniques like mixed narrative orders,split narrative voice and free indirect speech in representing individuals’ trauma.These techniques highlight clearly a cognitive disparity and distance between Tassie’s experiencing self and narrating self,marking at the narrative level of a story of her loss of innocence.Tassie’s initiation serves as harsh critique of American society,its parental oversight,widespread racism and the failure of multiculturalism,and the tremendous price the Americans have to pay for the war that has been officially justified.