A Study Of The Male Protagonist’s Trauma In Tim O’Brien’s In The Lake Of The Woods

America has witnessed many wars and it has been seriously affected, especiallyby Vietnam War, which causes great trauma to the veterans as well as their families andfriends. War stories take up a great part in American literature. Among all the VietnamWar novelists, Tim O’Brien is an outstanding writer who is called “Trauma Artist”. InIn the Lake of the Woods, Tim O’Brien focuses on the main character’s life after hecomes back to America.After Vietnam War, the initiation of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder enrichestrauma theory. More and more attention are being paid to trauma theory by critics. Themain character in In the Lake of the Woods is troubled with trauma. At the same time,the male soldiers in the war are changed greatly in their traits of masculinity. This paperintends to study O’Brien’s novel In the Lake of the Woods from the perspective oftrauma theory and masculinity studies. It aims at exploring the causes of the character’strauma and the symptoms and it also attaches great importance to the loss of the malesoldier’s masculinity and the effects upon his marriage life. By combining the theoriesof trauma and masculinity, this thesis is going to analyze the effects of the Vietnam Waron the male protagonist and also provides a different perspective of studying AmericanWar literature.Four chapters are included in this thesis. Chapter One is a brief introduction toVietnam War, a scholarship on Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods, and the theoryof trauma and masculinity studies. Chapter Two explores the impacts of Vietnam War on the main character’s individual life. John Wade, the main character, is seriouslytraumatized by the cruel Vietnam War. This chapter concentrates on the symptoms ofhis PTSD and also the impacts of his trauma upon his career. Chapter Three illustratesthe effects of John Wade’s trauma upon his marriage life. The changes of John’spersonality resulted from his trauma and his strong desire to control his wife, lead to atragic end of their marriage. The last chapter is the conclusion of the whole thesis.