A Study Of The Human Stain With Trauma Theory

Philip Roth is one representative of Jewish writers, and he is still active in contemporary American literature. In his many works, he presents various aspects of American Jewish life including the spiritual life in a unique way and Roth plays an important role in the American Jewish literature. Although most of Roth’s works describe the inner world of the Jews, their profound theme is to reflect the ordinary people’s survival status throughout the Western world. Roth’s works obtain almost all literary awards except the Nobel Prize for literature. Those awards include the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the PEN / Faulkner Award and so on. The Human Stain is Roth’s realistic masterpiece, which was published in 2000 as the last one of “American Trilogy” and was awarded by The New York Times Book Review as one of the “Ten Best Books” of that year in America. In the next year of its publication, it won the Faulkner Prize and the Nabokov Award in 2006. This novel depicts cultural and psychological trauma that the protagonist Coleman Silk suffered as an African-American in the white-dominated society during the Clinton era. In American society in which racial discrimination, “political correctness” and the persecution spirit prevailed at that time, Coleman’s loss of self-identity and the quest for it finally led to tragedy. His lover in his old age, Faunia Farley, is the representative of women group who were struggling in the margin of society. In childhood, she was sexually harassed by her stepfather and suffered from severe psychological trauma. The failed marriage and the death of children once again traumatized Faunia deeply, resulting in her loss of self and self-exile. Faunia’s ex-husband Lester Farley who was tortured by the war trauma after returning from the Vietnam War couldn’t get rid of the shadow of war all his life. Lester is also the murderer of Coleman and Faunia. In this novel, Roth not only shows his concern about the individuals, but also through the changes of individual fate reveals the stain of human and the stain in society as a whole, reflecting modern people’s existential paradox in today’s society.The Human Stain can be regarded as a trauma fiction, in which the characters are tortured by trauma respectively resulting in their tragic fate. It is also a microcosm of the whole American society. Therefore, to explore the characters’ trauma in this novel by means of trauma theory is a viable and unique perspective. This thesis consists of five parts in total, and they are introduction, the first chapter, the second chapter, the third chapter and conclusion. Introduction includes a brief introduction of Philip Roth, his works, The Human Stain as well as its literature review. This section also introduces the trauma theory briefly. In the first chapter, the protagonist Coleman is the research object, and the writer applies the theory of cultural trauma and psychological trauma to analyze Coleman’s trauma. In the second chapter, the heroine Faunia is the object of the writer’s analysis, in which the family trauma she suffered in her childhood and adulthood is studied respectively. In the third chapter, writer probes into the war trauma which tortures Lester, a Vietnam War veteran, all his life and analyzes his symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, also the impacts of war trauma. In short, this thesis analyzes this novel with trauma theory in order to present its theme preferably and enlighten one’s meditation on the plight of contemporary human existence.