A Study Of Trauma In Toni Morrison’s Sula

Toni Morrison, the first female African-American writer who wins the Nobel Prize for literature in the world, is best known for lots of novels. Her works have always been the research focus of scholars both at home and abroad for showing the lives of American blacks vividly with exquisite depiction, portraying the real living condition of blacks in United States profoundly and exposing the huge trauma caused by racism. Among them, her novel Sula shows a sharp story of human nature. Taking Sula’s growth as the main line, Morrison describes the changes of the black community “Bottom” to permeate the author’s concern on the black’s trauma and find ways to heal trauma at the same time.This thesis is a study of trauma in Sula. This thesis expounds the trauma suffered by the black especially the black women in American society in combination with Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory. At the same time this thesis explores the methods of trauma recovery referring to trauma recovery process of Judith Herman. The United States is a nation of immigrants with multiple races where the white had the superior dominance while the minorities suffered unequal treatment in the society historically. Slavery, racism, and war have made African-Americans battered in the haze for a long time. And black women were at the bottom of the society under the double oppression of racialism and sexism. Indifferent family, loveless marriage and split friendship has caused incurable pain to the black community as well. This thesis takes the trauma recovery experiences of two black women, Sula and Nel, as examples to explore the methods to recover from trauma for black women. In this novel, Sula pursued extreme freedom in accordance with her experimental life, and she was isolated from the black community for her indulgent attitude towards life, which eventually led to her failure in trauma recovery. Even though Nel had been guarding her life carefully with traditional thoughts, she could not get rid of miserable fate either. She had self-recognition in trauma recovery process and succeeded to have self-growth. At last, this thesis probes into the suggestions of trauma recovery on modern society. In order to create a harmonious social environment, it is necessary to establish equal relations between the black and white, strengthen the black’s sense of community, and build harmonious family relations and friendly interpersonal relationship.Instead of studying from the previous perspective like racism and feminist, this thesis analyzes Sula from the perspective of trauma theory. Through analyzing the roots of the black’s tragic fate, this thesis probes into the means to walk out from trauma.