| Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini is a dark horse in the literary world of21stcentury. So far, he only published three works, all of which are set in Afghanistanand offer the people a literary window of re-knowing about Afghanistan. A ThousandSplendid Suns is Hosseini’s second novel, which has drawn a great attention to criticsafter its publication. Since it was published, most of critics analyze it from theperspective of feminism, and few of them have mentioned trauma factors in the novel,let alone having a systematic research on the psychological trauma of the femalecharacters.Therefore, this paper will analyze the psychology of the two female characterswith trauma theory, dedicating to deducing that the problems of family, marriage, warand gender discrimination cause severe psychological trauma. And the traumatizedwill have a gradual recovery process in which they can get out of the traumatic effectthrough retelling the story, reconnecting with others and reconstructing identity. Itturns out that the two female characters do suffer varying degrees of psychologicaltrauma, but ultimately, they find a way out through the above ways.The research result provides a new perspective for the study of A ThousandSplendid Suns. This paper aims to reveal the serious psychological trauma in femalescaused by the oppression and destruction of the patriarchy society, and it attempts toexplore a way for Afghan women to achieve the equality between the sexes and socialharmony.This thesis consists of five chapters: introduction, literature review, criticalapproach, discussion and conclusion.The first chapter briefly introduces the writer of the novel Khaled Hosseini, themotivation of the author of this thesis, the story outline of A Thousand Splendid Suns,and the structural plan of this thesis.The second chapter introduces the research status at home and abroad of this novel and the research significance of this thesis.The third chapter explains the main content of trauma theory, especially for theorigin, formation and development, making sure the feasibility of the trauma theory asa method of literary criticism in the study of this novel.The fourth chapter is divided into two parts. The first part applies trauma theoryto analyze this novel, mainly starting from the trauma embodied in Mariam and Lailato discuss the trauma of Afghan women. This thesis analyzes Mariam’s suffering fromfamily trauma and marriage trauma and Laila’s suffering from war trauma andmarriage trauma, finally extending to the trauma of Afghan women: the trauma fromsexual discrimination. It reveals that the Afghan women are always the victims ofviolence and discrimination, who are reduced to the marginal group, the others in thesociety, and it is a must for them to explore a way out to change their situation. Thesecond part expounds that the traumatized need a recovery process through retellingthe trauma story, reconstructing the connections with others and their identities. Thenegative impact of trauma is beyond doubt, but, in the process of the psychologicaltreatment, many self-improvement strengths will be produced, which could help thetraumatized reestablish their confidence for life, find real themselves and the courageto see the world again.The fifth chapter is the conclusion. This thesis analyzes Khaled Hosseini’s novelA Thousand Splendid Suns from the perspective of trauma theory, taking Mariam andLaila as the representatives of Afghan women to reveal that women are restricted thefreedom and the right to pursue the equal status, and the only thing they could do isnot to keep silent but strive for their rights and interests, and to look for their positionin more fields. Meanwhile, this novel also shows Khaled Hosseini’s care, compassionand appeal to Afghan women, which makes this thesis possessed of both thetheoretical and practical significance. Only if men and women play their roles equallyin the society, can the society have a harmonious and healthy development. |
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