Decoding Reflections In A Golden Eye From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Carson McCullers was one of the most important American writers in the20 th century. She was a talented and famous American writer who began her literary path in the 1940 s. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has made her famous and popular since it was published when she was 23. She published Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Member of the Wedding, The Ballad of the Sad Café and Clock Without Hands in succession. “Spiritual isolation” remains the main and essential theme of her literary works though her works are concerned with other themes like homosexuality, racism, feminism, etc.Published in 1941, Reflections in a Golden Eye undoubtedly inherits the same theme and style as the former one The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and was adapted into a movie acted by Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando in 1967.Grotesque figures are the permanent features in Carson McCullers' s novel;Reflections in a Golden Eye is no exception. The novel tells that five people with different and freakish personalities whose dreams, loneliness, obsessions and failures were interwoven in a South American post, and ended in a queer murder.Carson McCullers used flat and plain plots to unfold the theme of human estrangement and spiritual isolation. And the traumatic experiences they suffered from were the source of their endless loneliness and the tragic end of this novel.This paper aims to analyze Reflections in a Golden Eye, a novel which contains simple plots but complicated psychological minds of the characters through the perspective of trauma theory. This thesis analyzes the lonely souls and freakish personalities of the characters in the novel via investigating their trauma experiences in the past. And spiritual isolation pursued by Carson McCullers is also shown in this paper. Chapter one mainly concentrates on the brief introduction of Carson McCullers and her novel Reflections in a Golden Eye.Additionally, significance and purpose combined with literature review from abroad and home is also presented in this chapter. Chapter two outlines the definition and development of trauma theory. With the combination of trauma theory and close reading of the contexts, traumatic embodiments of the characters and what reasons had caused their trauma experiences are dug out in chapter three and chapter four respectively. Chapter five aims to focus on the fates of characters and the final ending of this novel through the perspective of traumarecovery. Due to the failure in coping with trauma, the tragic curtain is dropped.Based on analysis above, chapter six concludes the employment of trauma theory is helpful to decode the source of the tragedy and mysteries in grotesque characters. Meanwhile, it also reflects the writing theme of Carson McCullers,that is, men cannot escape loneliness until they die.