The Way To Walk Out Of Trauma

Toni Morrison is a black woman writer enjoying a high prestige and a pearl shining in contemporary Afro-American literary area.In 1993,Morrison became the first African American female writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature because of her high artistic accomplishments.And she has been paying attention to black women under racial oppression and gender discrimination.The second novel of Morrison Sula is a masterpiece full of inexpressible sadness and astonishment.The researches on Sula mostly concentrate on three aspects:post colonialism,feminism and archetypal criticism,but few of them are involved in traumatic factors.In this thesis,the author interprets black women's traumatic symptoms,traumatic causes and ways to get rid of trauma from the perspective of the trauma theory.There are six chapters in this thesis:The first chapter is the introduction to this thesis.This chapter introduces the life of Toni Morrison,the writing background and main contents of the novel Sula.In the meantime,this chapter makes a brief literature review of research findings of Sula by both Chinese and overseas scholars.Meanwhile,it highlights the research focus and the innovation point of this thesis.The second chapter is the theoretical part of the thesis.This chapter expounds briefly the definition and development of trauma theory,the types of trauma,the symptoms of trauma,the causes of trauma and the ways to get rid of trauma as well as the application of trauma theory in literary criticism.The third chapter is the core part of this thesis.This chapter mainly analyzes the traumatic symptoms of black women in Sula,In black women's family relations,they are the objects towards whom men vent pain;they have to experience the trauma of being oppressed and sometimes they are even abandoned by their husbands.In black women's social relations,the revolutionary friendship between black women and their fellows has been destroyed by powerful patriarchal system,so they also have to experience the trauma of being betrayed by their friends.The fourth chapter is another core part of this thesis.This chapter will discuss the traumatic causes of black women from these two aspects:for some historical reasons,American black women suffer from double oppressions of the whites and black men,so the social status of African American female is at the edge of the society.These are the main causes leading to their trauma.And for some social reasons,the lack of love and the broken relationship in the community also aggravate their loneliness and insecurity.These are other main causes leading to black women's trauma.The fifth chapter is also a core part of this thesis.The discussion focuses on the ways to get rid of trauma when black women face life dilemma and spiritual dilemma.Although the exploration of Eva and Sula both end in failure,the rebellious consciousness of Sula has an important effect on Nel,and at last Nel explores a rational way of walking out of trauma successfully.The sixth chapter is the conclusion of this thesis.It reviews the whole thesis and expounds the significance of applying trauma theory into this thesis again:only when African American women have a correct understanding of their own traumatic experiences,traumatic symptoms and traumatic causes can they walk out of the haze of trauma,reconstruct their self identity and create a better future.