Trauma Representation And Identity Reconstruction

This thesis, through a comparative study of Joy Kogawa’s Obasan and Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach, explores how Japanese Canadians and Canadian Aboriginal people face historical trauma and handle the identity issue. Identity is important to everyone but trauma can fragment or rupture the victim’s sense of identity. For Japanese Canadians, the event that traumatizes them is the Internment policy issued by the Canadian government during WWII after the Pearl Harbor Bomb. Japanese Canadians were treated as "enemies" and were exiled to the interior area of Canada, being deprived of all possessions and most rights that Canadian citizens are granted. For Aboriginal people, colonization has produced a lasting psychic wound. Assimilation puts their cultures and Aboriginal identity on the verge of disappearance. Even today, they still suffer the consequences of colonization. Japanese Canadian writer Joy Kogawa and Aboriginal Canadian writer Eden Robinson examine the possible ways of healing trauma and reconstructing identity from their respective ethnic perspective.With the support of trauma theories, this thesis is designed to explore the similarities and differences of the two novels, which enables us to gain better insights into the complication of identity issue within Canada’s multicultural social context. Trauma refers to the mental or psychological damage caused by the unpleasant events that an individual experienced in the past. Narrative is regarded as an essential tool of healing trauma in that it can help the victims to rebuild the link with the past. By re-combing the past chaos, these victims are able to find the causes of their present problems. Through narrative, they get healed and reconstruct the integrity of identity.The two writers take narrative as a major means of negotiating the relationship between trauma and identity reconstruction. The similarities lie in that, firstly, both writers relate individual traumas to family tragedies which are embedded in the racial traumas; secondly, both writers guide their protagonists toward reconnection and reconciliation with the past as a strategy of healing trauma and reconstructing identity. The differences, on the other hand, are powerfully manifested through the distinct ethnic elements and different identity appeals that these two novels reflect. Silence is depicted as Japanese character whereas storytelling is one of the major means of inheriting and passing on Aboriginal cultural heritage, both of which play significant roles in countering trauma and reconstructing identity. The significant difference lies in the identity appeals:Japanese Canadians refuse to be treated as "others" whereas Aboriginal people say "No" to assimilation. This thesis makes a comparative study of two different ethnic novels selected from among Canadian ethnic minority literary works, which provides a new perspective for Canadian literature study in China.