Racial Trauma And The Reconstruction Of Racial Identity In Absalom, Absalom!

William Faulkner, the famous American Southern novelist and Nobel Prize winner, has written nineteen novels throughout his life, among which fifteen novels are set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Absalom, Absaloml is the ninth novel of his cycle of works that is set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. As one of the most important and perhaps the most elusive work of William Faulkner, Absalom, Absaloml is generally hailed as the most comprehensive work that William Faulkner has ever written. Generally speaking, Absalom, Absaloml is a novel which deals with the racial burden of Southern history. Various kinds of racial conflict coexist with racial intimacy in this novel. The race issue in Absalom, Absalom! has been explored by critics from various perspectives. The present thesis purports to use Frantz Fanon’s theory of racial trauma, combining with cultural analysis and textual analysis, to study the race issue in Absalom, Absaloml.The present thesis is divided into five parts. Introduction will give a brief overview of the critical studies on the race issue of Absalom, Absaloml. Besides, it will also introduce the method, purpose and significance of the research. Chapter One will analyze the black people’s racial trauma. The black people as a racial group have been traumatized by slavery and colonization for a long time. Slavery and colonization give rise to the alienation of the black people. The alienation of the black people leads to the white society’s rejection of the black people, which has triggered the black people’s divided self-perception. Chapter Two focuses on the white people’s racial trauma. As the executor of slavery and colonization, the white people have been likewise traumatized in the process of discriminating against the black people. In Absalom, Absaloml, the black people, especially the miscegenation, have integrated themselves into the fabric of Southern life and influenced the white men’s way of thinking and living, which gives rise to the crisis of the white people’s subjectivity. Though the black and the white have formed such intimate relationship as kinship, brotherly friendship and sisterly love in Absalom, Absalom!, the white people still tries hard to cut off their intimate tie with the black people. The white people’s repudiation of the black people mainly lies in their phobia of Negro. In the deep heart of every white people, there is a neurotic fear of the black people’s sexual potency. Chapter Three focuses on the reconstruction of racial identity. Generally speaking, Absalom, Absalom! is a tragedy, it is not only the shared tragedy of the black and the white, but also the personal tragedy of Sutpen and the national tragedy of the Old South. Slavery and racism have not only brought about the shared trauma of both the black and the white, but also led to the destruction of Sutpen’s dynasty and that of the Old South. To reconstruct racial identity based upon mutual respect and reciprocal recognition is the only effective way to avoid the reappearance of such tragedies. Judith, Sutpen’s white daughter, has already offered the hope for racial equality and racial integration. Conclusion will summarize the main idea of the entire thesis.