The Journey To Healing: Larry·mcmurtry’s The Late Child

Larry McMurtry holds an important position in New Western Literature. He isone of the main spokesmen for post-war American western fiction, and his worksfully demonstrate the post-western features in postmodernist context. He successfullybridges the gap between serious literature and popular literature, and makes westernliterature one part of the mainstream literature. The Late Child is one of his finestpieces.Adopting the methodology of trauma studies, with Freud’s trauma theories aswell as other scholars’ perspectives concerning trauma, by narrating the formation oftrauma and the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder of Harmony, this thesis unfolds thetraumas of Harmony, her efforts to work through traumatic symptoms, and proposesthe final failure of the healing journey.This thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter focuses on explaining thedifferent traumas in the novel, including the collective trauma and the individualtrauma. Chapter Two discloses Harmony’s traumatic symptoms after experiencingthe traumatic events, like the symptoms of self-abuse, spiritual isolation, dissociationand replaying the past. The third chapter probes into the efforts and struggle ofHarmony to work through trauma. In order to recover, Harmony witnessed thebeauty of the west, tried to tell traumatic stories, made sure of her hope for the future,and enhanced the relationships with others. And the fourth chapter discusses that thejourney ended up with failure from the aspects of Harmony’s remaining traumaticsymptoms and the reasons of still being in trauma. Even though Harmony tried herbest to recover to health, she failed eventually. The conclusion summarizes the mainpoints of this thesis as well as shows the warning roles of this novel and theimportance of study.