The Soul Redemption:A Traumatic Study Of The Stone Angel

Margaret Laurence is one of the most famous writers in contemporary Canada,known as "the mother of Canadian literature",and won two Governor General’s Awards.Her Manawaka cycle fully embodies the humane care of female.The first novel of Manawaka cycle,The Stone Angel,is regarded as her masterpiece,and establishes her important position in Canadian literary world.The novel in the first-person perspective and double space-time nonlinear narrative vividly tells a ninety-year-old woman Hagar’s encounters in the few weeks before dying and her recollection of the troubled life.Over the past twenty years,trauma research gradually develops into an interdisciplinary research.This interdisciplinary nature makes its application in the literary field more realistic significance.Nowadays the traumatic research of Canadian literature at home and abroad remains to be enriched.And there are few traumatic studies of Laurence’s works.Based on the previous relevant studies,from the perspective of Judith Herman’s trauma theory,combining pathology,psychology and literary criticism,this thesis makes a close reading of the characters in The Stone Angel and to analyze the roots and recovery of Hagar’s traumas,aiming to interpret the process that Hagar achieves the soul redemption from escaping traumas to confronting traumas.The traumatic study of The Stone Angel not only can help explore its artistic value as a trauma novel,but also powerfully demonstrates the curability of female traumas,providing feasible reference for the psychological trauma prevention and treatment of modern women who seek independence in new era.