A Study Of By The Light Of My Father’s Smile From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Women’s writing in African American literature, as an important part of Ethic American Literature, in the short history of American Literature makes a great difference. With the emergence of black women writers in the 1970 s, Alice Walker, being one of the most influential African American women writers, mainly focuses on the miserable life of black women oppressed by the patriarchal ideology and racial discrimination, and praises the strong personality of women in misfortune and their indomitable struggles for the equal position with men.In By the Light of My Father’s Smile, to some extent, the main characters are nearly traumatized by their overwhelming experiences. Walker also describes the possibilities of trauma recovery, which gives a light of hope to the subjects of trauma when she deals with the traumatic experiences of African Americans. In the novel, Walker portrays the conflicts between father Robinson and daughter Magdalena, and explores the African American women’s protests against patriarchy and racial domination. By utilizing the trauma theory, this thesis investigates the roots and the reasons for trauma and the process of trauma healing in the background of racial conflict. By exploring the ways of traumatic recovery, the main characters reconstruct their own identities.The purpose of this thesis is to elaborate the racial conflicts between the black and the white, which should be responsible for the conflict between father Robinson and daughter Magdalena. Meanwhile, the black women also suffer from gender trauma which is the consequence of patriarchy oppression.Trauma theory is used in this thesis so as to study the novel from a new perspective because the novel reveals the issues of the black men who suffer from racial trauma and the black women who suffer from both racial and gender trauma due to the practice of racial and gender oppression.There are four chapters in the thesis. The first chapter includes the introduction to Alice Walker and her works, literature review and trauma theory. The second chapter analyzes the major characters’ traumatic experiences, the deep reasons, and the symptoms of trauma to show the African American people’s physiological and psychological trauma in the United States. The third chapter discusses the major characters’ ways of traumatic recovery and explores the process of identity reconstruction. This part mainly illustrates that the black people cast off the constraint of the white mainstream society and regain the mental and physical freedom through the ceaseless fighting. The fourth chapter is a conclusion: the analysis of black people’s struggle and salvation by exploring the causes of trauma and the ways of working through trauma from the perspective of trauma theory. Finally, it shows Alice Walker’s belief in African Americans’ ability of overcoming the darkness of trauma and finding the light of hope.