A Study On Different Construction Of Female Aboriginality In Coonardoo And My Place From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Katherine Susannath Prichard's representative work,Coonardoo,has drawn much attention since its publication because it is the first objective description about Aborigines written by a white writer.And Sally Morgan's autobiography,My Place,has been regarded as a milestone in Australian Aboriginal literature for its literary and social significance.Both Coonardoo and My Place take the great and similar traumatic experiences suffered by two Aboriginal girls,Coonardoo and Sally,who live in different periods,as the main line to present their struggle for identification at their own times but with different ending to their fate.Under the guidance of trauma theory,this thesis gives a specific study on the protagonists' similar traumatic experiences and their subsequent responses in post-trauma recovery,to illustrate the different construction of female Aboriginality so as to highlight the interwovenness between trauma recovery and identity construction.Both Coonardoo and Sally experience similar racial trauma,cultural trauma and sexual trauma,which cause their identity crisis respectively.Trauma needs healing,and lost identity needs to be reconstructed.The two protagonists' different reactions to trauma recovery are reflected in such three stages of trauma healing as the establishment of sense of safety,the remembering and mourning,and the reconnection with normal life,which are proposed by Judith Herman,a prominent trauma theorist.And this thesis makes a comparative analysis between Coonardoo's failure in the first recovery stage and Sally's success in three stages to illustrate trauma recovery is indispensable to the conditions of identity construction,among which the different Aboriginal historical situation,family support and self-consciousness are represented to determine Coonardoo's and Sally's opposite ending.Therefore,under the guidance of the theory of trauma and recovery,by analyzing the identity crisis suffered by Australian Aboriginal females,this thesis not only aims to reveal that the great traumatic experiences contribute a lot to identity crisis,but alsotries to explain the interwovenness between trauma recovery and identity construction.In addition,this thesis also attempts to remind people of understanding trauma,facing with trauma and realizing the great significance of trauma recovery for identity construction.