On Frank Mcguinness’s Plays From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Frank McGuinness, a famous contemporary Irish playwright, enjoys a reputation in the international drama circle. He is praised as "the most outstanding of the younger generation of contemporary playwrights". He has written more than thirty full-length plays, two volumes of poems and many other works. Among his plays, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, and Dolly West’s Kitchen may be regarded as his masterpieces which won him numerous prizes and praises, and also are his representative works for trauma theory.From the three plays we can see that the characters in McGuinness’s plays frequently suffer from intense psychological trauma. Many foreign critics have conducted research on his plays from various perspectives, but there lacks specialized study of his plays from the perspective of trauma theory. In addition, the research on him in China is at the initial stage. Therefore, from the perspective of trauma theory, this thesis analyzes the trauma reflected in the characters of McGuinness’s plays by close reading and theoretical study.This thesis is divided into five parts. Firstly, the introduction part briefly introduces the playwright, his three plays, the research situation of his plays and the defects of the research in China and abroad, as well as trauma theory and the theme of the thesis, i.e. the analysis of the trauma reflected in the three plays. Chapter One classifies trauma of the plays into war trauma, cultural trauma, captivity trauma and family trauma, and discusses the four traumas in the plays. Chapter Two uses the method of close reading and trauma theory to analyze the traumatic symptoms and effects of the characters, such as despair, depression, horror, insomnia, etc. Chapter Three discusses the recovery of the trauma, which is through strategies of safety establishment, remembrance, reconnection with others, and writing cure. Finally, the conclusion section summarizes the whole thesis, and points out that trauma theory provides a new perspective to analyze the plays, where the description of traumatic symptoms and exploration of trauma recovery in McGuinness’s plays provide plenty of examples for trauma research, and they can help people learn about and cope with their own trauma.