Trauma And Recovery:the Disconnection And Re-connection Of Immigrants In White Teeth

After Second World War,with a large number of immigrants swarming into Britain,the immigration issue turned to be the most challenging and urgent one to cope with.Although immigrants have brought some chaos and pain to the natives,their suffering as outsiders cannot be ignored.Among all the obstacles immigrants were confronted with,anti-immigrants movements and violent actions conducted by some native extremists and supported by some politicians were the most serious ones.At this background,Zadie Smith created the novel White Teeth.The novel combines history and real life to illustrate the stories of the two immigrating families in London,exposing conflicts among generations and races,and revealing their psychological and cultural trauma induced by disconnection and alienation.Through thoroughly exploration of White Teeth in the light of Trauma theories,this thesis will study the trauma and recovery of the Post-War immigrants and their children who are traumatically disconnected in Britain.Chapter One is the introduction part,some basic information of this thesis will be presented.Chapter Two and Three will exemplify the traumatic sufferings of disconnection of immigrants from two aspects: one is the alienation and disconnection existing in the multicultural and multi-ethnical city and the other is the spiritual and ideological dissonance among the protagonists.Chapter Four concentrates on the recovery of trauma.Through re-connection to others and communities,immigrants get recovered at last.Chapter Five is a conclusion of the whole thesis.In White Teeth,different boundaries set by the British government,the natives,and the immigrants separate the collectivity and obstruct the coherence of the whole country.Nevertheless,disconnection hinders the development of the country.In order to establish a coherent society,a tolerant neutral way of thinking is advisable in the course of achieving the practical and spiritual re-connection among immigrants and natives.