Segregation-induced Trauma:An Interpretation Of Waiting For The Barbarians From The Perspective Of The Trauma Theory

John Maxwell Coetzee is an Afrikaner novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.Influenced by his growing environment,Coetzee focuses his attention on the long history of apartheid in South Africa.The practice of apartheid has left severe traumas on both the blacks and the whites.Coetzee's works are full of traumatic narrative.As the novel that brings Coetzee worldwide reputation,Waiting for the Barbarians depicts truthfully the trauma of two opposite groups.From the perspective of trauma theory,this thesis analyzes the physical trauma and psychological trauma in the novel Waiting for the Barbarians.The study focuses on the following aspects: the physical trauma,the psychological trauma and the possibility of trauma recovery.Furthermore,this thesis explains the reason why the barbarian girl and the anonymous magistrate cannot recover from their trauma.The thesis consists of six parts.An introduction to J.M.Coetzee and the novel Waiting for the Barbarians serves as the first part.The second part is a literature review on the novel which is a summary review of the relevant international and domestic studies and ends with a brief comment.The third part is theoretical frame work which explains how the theory of trauma works.Then come the fourth part and the fifth part in which the trauma and trauma recovery are discussed.The fourth part is the third chapter of this thesis.In this chapter,the traumas of the barbarians and the Magistrate are analyzed.The abused bodies are the evidence of the Empire's atrocities such as physical torture,imprisonment and captivity,which lead to the psychological trauma.The tragedy of the barbarians originates from the Empire's antagonism towards them.Regarded as the enemies of the Empire,the barbarians are banished from their homeland.And then begins the segregation between races.The barbarians are oppressed by the whites.Besides the fact that the barbarians are physically traumatized,it cannot be ignored that the imprisonment and captivity serve as the forms of segregation and disconnection that also cause the psychological trauma to the barbarians.Compared with Coetzee's growth environment,it is not difficult to find out that Coetzee is alluding to the era when the apartheid prevails in South Africa through the trauma writing in Waiting for the Barbarians.But the barbarians are not the only victims of this regime.The Magistrate in the novel is a case in point that reflects the fact that the whites also could be traumatized by segregation.For the white people,the trauma of witnessing the Empire's atrocities mainly originates from the sense of guilt.Then out of sympathy the Magistrate decides to protect the barbarians.As the consequence,he is put in prison and segregated from the community.During the imprisonment,he experiences the physical torture and is traumatized psychologically,too.It can be concluded that the segregation causes the traumas of both the barbarians the whites.The fourth chapter focuses on the recovery of traumas.Through the analysis in this chapter,it's not difficult to find out that the segregation not only causes the trauma of the main characters but also hinders them from recovery.Being segregated from the safe environment,the barbarian girl cannot accomplish the remembrance and mourning,which makes her recovery end in failure.As for the Magistrate,he is segregated from his community after he was released from the prison.Such segregation leads him to a failure in reconnection,which is a key loop in the trauma recovery.This chapter concludes that the main characters can never recover from their traumas as long as the segregation exists.The last part is the conclusion.This part summarizes of the main characters' traumas and the reason why their traumas cannot be healed.Finally,it concludes that the barbarian girl and the Magistrate can never recover from their trauma in the context of segregation.