The Tragic Narrative Study In Catherine Ann Porter 's Novels

Katherine Anne Porter(1890—1980) is both a famous writer in American modern literature history and one of the most important female novelists in America. Porter is not a prolific writer with only 26 short stories and one novel Ship of Fools in all, but her writing skill reflected in her deep insight into human’s inner world has been unanimously acclaimed. Her works reflect the unstable western society in the 20 th century and the confusion, terror and anxiety in westerners’ mind in the modern society. Katherine Anne Porter is awarded many literature prizes, such as O’ Henry Short Story Prize, Guggenheim Award, National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize and Gold Medal in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her great contribution to American modern literature. She comes to be known as “writer’s writer”. Her literal works have become an essential part of American modern literature.This dissertation aims to analyze the traumatic acclaims and the characteristics of traumatic writing in Katherine Anne Porter’s works in the perspective of trauma theory. As a newly rising literal criticism at the turn of the 21 st century, the trauma theory combines modern psychology, clinical medicine, neurology, narratology, etc,to explore the importance of traumatic writing in modern literature. Meanwhile,trauma theory has furthered and widened the psychoanalysis established by Sigmund Freud, offering new principles and elucidative perspectives to analyze texts,character’s mind, author’s intention and reader’s psychological establishment. Based on the effect of traumas on people’s psychology, trauma theory arouses readers’ comprehension and interpretation of the theme, helps readers make a further analysis of the traumatic elements, traumatic influence, traumatic symptoms and the nature of trauma included in literal works and finally gives readers a better understanding of the writer’s motivation and the theme of works. Trauma theory offers a deep insight into the traumatic characters and provides a new perspective of elucidation for the relationship between writer, readers, script and society.Katherine Anne Porter’s works reflect a very obvious characteristic of traumatic writing.Firstly, as for her personal life, Porter had an unhappy childhood, four depressing marriages and lonely twilight years. All of these traumatic elements are clearly reflected in her literal works. Through her delicate writing style, Porter makes a vivid description of the various traumatic experiences people face in the different steps of life.Secondly, as for her age background, Porter underwent the loss of traditional Old South, witnessed the destructive attack of the Great Depression and the First World War on western values and beliefs and saw the sharp rising of Fascism in Europe before World War Two. All of these experiences also provide materials for thetraumatic narration in her later short stories and the novel Ship of Fools. They serve as a narrative perspective for Porter to understand the western society. Thus we can conclude that both her personal experience and the social environment infuse her works with traumatic genes.Thirdly, nightmares, flashback, inexplicable terror and fantasy of death which reflected in many characters in Porter’s works are all the external manifestation of psychological trauma according to the trauma theory. These traumatic symptoms reflect the interaction between the character’s inner mind and the external environment.Finally, as a writer who is well known for delicate style of writing, Porter’s exquisite writing is best reflected in her traumatic writing. Through the sensationalized description of trauma namely color, smell, taste, feeling, etc, Porter symbolizes the traumatic experiences which are abstract and difficult to grasp and creates images with great tension to improve the aesthetics of her traumatic writing.Moreover, Porter also uses epiphany and silence in her traumatic writing to make character’s traumatic psychology more profound and complicated. From the perspective of traumatic writing to analyze and appreciate the aesthetics in Porter’s works, readers can have a further understanding of Porter’s exquisite writing style and the theme of her works.Trauma theory provides a new perspective for the research on Katherine Anne Porter and her works. So far there has never been any systematic research and publication of monographs about Porter’s works in China. This dissertation focuses on Porter’s major works——including 15 short stories and the novel Ship of Fools——to display the theme and the artistic characteristics of the traumatic writing in her works. This is of great significance not only to the overall research on Katherine Anne Porter and her works, but also to the research on American modern literature,especially the development of female modern literature in America. This dissertation emphasizes the combination of theory and practice, the analysis of specific works on the basis of trauma theory and the detailed textual analysis. For Porter is a writer well-known for her exquisite style and most of her works are delicately carved, the concealed traumatic elements in her writing can be further explored and understood only through detailed textual analysis.This dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, which is based on American southern literature and the saga of Porter family, analyzes Katherine Anne Porter’s double complex of south America and the reflection of this complex in her writing. The second chapter focuses on the traumatic narration in Porter’s short stories on the basis of the types of the traumatic themes. The third chapter focuses on the traumatic narration in Porter’s mere novel Ship of Fools, including the influence of the tradition of fool literature, the intertextuality between Porter’s short stories and Ship of Fools, the internal and external structure of Ship of Fools and the traumatic manifestation reflected through the various fools on the ship. The forth chapteranalyzes the means of traumatic writing used in Porter’s works to probe into aesthetics of Porter’s delicate writing style. In the perspective of trauma theory, the aim of this dissertation is to analyze traumatic narration in her works, including traumatic events, traumatic symptoms, traumatic influence and traumatic feeling, etc.Then we can track down the personal and social traumatic elements and the origin of trauma which is hidden under the traumatic surface. It can not only make reader have a further understanding of Porter and her works, but also make readers understand trauma and explore the reasons for those traumas.