Schizophrenia - The Trauma Of War Under The "spell.

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most influential contemporary American novelists inthe1960s. His works especially novels like The Sirens of Titan（1959）, Cat’s Cradle（1963）, Slaughterhouse-Fiv（e1969）, Breakfast of Champion（s1973）, Jailbird（1979）,Timequake（1997）, etc, have been widely acclaimed by both readers and critics. Of allVonnegut’s works, Hocus Pocus didn’t gain as much concern and recognitions his othernovels. As a matter of fact, Hocus Pocus is indeed a bestseller and has played a veryimportant role in Vonnegut’s writing career. In this novel, through the pitiful life of aVietnam veteran, the author manages to illustrate that although the war was over manyyears ago, the impact of it is far from being over. The author tries to tell us that theinfluence of the war is long-lasting and devastating.From the psychoanalytical perspective, this thesis analyses the novel by using theTraumatic Theory. The war has brought not only severe injury to the human bodies, butalso severe casualties to the ordinary people. Though the war is over, this psychologicaltrauma would never end. The war trauma will cause some sort of mental disease such asschizophrenia. In order to alleviate sufferings from the war, people often employschizophrenia as a way of ego defense mechanism to protect themselves and to continuetheir seemingly normal lives. The casualties of war are like a hocus pocus，they can acton the mental world and the reality. Schizophrenia is like a shameful mark, reflectingthe deep and bad impact the war has brought to the modern society.