Traumatic Reading Of August Wilson’s Plays

August Wilson (1945-2005) is praised as one of the most talented playwrights. He spendsmore than twenty years writing ten chronicle plays on African Americans’ history and epitomizesthe “century history” of African Americans into dramas in a metaphorical way. Each play trulyreflects African Americans’ social change in each decade of the20thcentury. Wilson’s greatcreation not only shows a comprehensive world of African Americans, but also highlights theright way to treat racial discrimination. Furthermore, by virtue of sincerely humanistic concern,Wilson is treated as the most outstanding dramatist after Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller andTennessee Williams.The trauma is so common that it exists in any individuals and groups in any times. Similarly,it is also obvious in Wilson’s chronicle plays. By historical reconstructing, Wilson reproducesAfrican Americans’ trauma which is generated from racial discrimination and injustice treatmentin the20thcentury, and guides the way out of trauma. Employing Sigmund Freud’s psychologicalanalysis, Cathy Caruth’s traumatic research and Jeffrey C. Alexander’s cultural traumatic theoryas the framework, this thesis thoroughly explores the traumatic issue of Wilson’s four plays byclose reading.Starting with a sketch of Wilson’s life, achievement and main idea, the introduction simplyshows the origin of his view. In addition, this essay also examines the literature on Wilson andintroduces the innovation of this perspective.Chapter One primarily explains the origin and development of the relevant trauma study inmodern academic circles, and analyzes the formation of African Americans’ trauma in detail. Combined with trauma theory, Chapter Two analyzes African American’s tremendouspsychological and cultural traumas of the20thcentury from three aspects, includinginsurmountable skin-color barrier, unachievable migration dream and unforgettable slavery agony.Wilson skillfully inserts the skin-color issue into Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and reveals AfricanAmerican’s incredible trauma which is brought by ubiquitous racial discrimination. In addition, itis the black’s huge mistake that they emigrate from southern plantation to industrial northern city,and it is doomed to be an unapproachable transplantation. Wilson’s view is proved in The PianoLesson and Fences, the protagonists hopefully arrive in the northern city and find everything is notas great as they thought, then the strong senses of gap leave another shock to their traumatic hearts.At last, Wilson integrates the slavery issue which has strong historical sense into Joe Turner’sCome and Gone without any trace. By the description of character’s sufferings, he attempts toshow that the slavery traumas still lurk in the privacy of African Americans’ thoughts.Chapter Three analyzes the redemption significance of blues music, traditional ceremony andself-belief of traumatic African Americans. Blues music, as the significant African culturalrepresentation, runs through Wilson’s plays from beginning to end. The unspeakable trauma isexpressed and healed by singing. Moreover, traditional African ceremonies further show theimportance of African culture, as confronting numerous traumatic experiences, the charactersalways need to draw strength from the ceremonies. In the end, Wilson’s view on abandonment of“the white’s God” to realize self-redemption is fully reflected in his works. Without exception, allthe characters rely on themselves to emerge from trauma and achieve redemption.The dissertation concludes that with drama as the medium, Wilson reconstructs AfricanAmericans’ trauma as facing up racial discrimination and unfair treatments, and further indicates that the traditional African culture endows American blacks with great strength to conquer traumaand get salvation. Furthermore, Wilson’s epic plays go far beyond the scope of African Americans,and rise to the height of the entire human beings’ unremitting pursuit of democracy, freedom, andequality which has universal significance.