A Study Of Native Son From The Perspective Of Traumatic Theory

Mankind history can be described as a history of trauma.From the primitive society to today with highly developed science and technology,from the tribal infighting with sticks and stone tools to the nuclear weapons that can destroy all human beings,it is accompanied by natural and man-made disasters that may bring a great psychological shadow to human beings.In stark contrast to this,human systematic research on trauma has only been a century and it is a relatively new field.In literary works,there have always been no short of topics that reflect human disasters and traumas.Although the history of the United States is not long,it cannot escape the framework of history.Talking about literature and trauma,American black literature has become the focus of scholars.Among them,Richard Wright is recognized as the pioneer of African American literature,and is titled the “Father of African American Literature”.Most of his works write the tragic life of black people,depicting real pictures of blacks' survival.Wright designs to attack the harsh racial,class,and cultural issues of American society at that time.Native Son not only creates a precedent for “protest literature”,but also becomes a milestone of black literature.In the novel,Wright breaks the traditional images of blacks,and shapes Bigger as a “new black” with a rebellious spirit.It is this point that absorbs attention of scholars.However,research perspectives are mostly traditional perspectives such as existentialism and post-colonialism,there are relatively few scholarly works from the perspective of the traumatic theory.Based on the close reading of the text and the latest research results of traumatic theory,the author intends to reveal the concerns for black compatriots by interpreting the traumatic events,post-traumatic syndromes,and its recovery.At the same time,the author also hopes to inspire readers' thinking about the current state of life and feel the hard-won gain of harmonious society.This thesis is divided into three parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The introduction part briefly introduces Richard Wright,main content of Native Son,research status on Native Son and trauma theory in domestic and abroad,and eventually put forward the study meaning of this thesis,laying the foundation to the body part.Thetheoretical basis of trauma is interspersed in relevant chapters,which provides a better support for the arguments,making the arguments more detailed and the text more compact.The body part includes three chapters.Chapter one mainly analyzes the causes of protagonist's trauma,including the racial persecution,class persecution and cultural persecution.Among them,racial trauma includes Bigger's fear and hatred to the white world and blacks' fixed thinking modes.As for class trauma,the author started with Jan's under suspicion,revealing the skin color is not the only determinant of social tragedy.The cultural trauma discusses the negative impact of the propaganda of mass media on racial and class concepts to both blacks and whites,and it also hinders the development of society.Chapter two mainly analyzes the traumatic syndromes.Combining with the symptoms of literary trauma,the author summarizes syndromes of characters after the trauma.The main expression is the fancy and flashback of Mary's death,“white” and“blood” frequently appear in the thoughts and dreams of Bigger.Bigger takes the initiative to alienate from the outer world,including his exclusion to whites,blacks,religious and even himself.In addition,Bigger also demonstrates the dissonance of consciousness,his behaviors are completely subject to his subconsciousness.Chapter three explores the process of recovery.According to three phases of recovery,Max plays the role of a therapist.Firstly,under the guidance of Jan and Max,Bigger established a basic sense of security.Then,Max kindly guided Bigger to recall his entire traumatic experience and narrate it.In the end,Bigger found the value of his existence,actively restored his relationship with others,bravely faced the upcoming death with a new self,and finally recovered from the shadow of trauma.The conclusion part combines with the current mental health issue,finding trauma is not unprofitable totally.As long as it is handled properly,the trauma will make people grow and become mature.At the same time,it reaffirms the practical significance of this research topic.Promoting the study of psychological trauma is beneficial to people's attention to the traumatic issue,and the process of recovery also provides a reference for the cure of psychological trauma in real life.