Trauma,Healing And Growth

Cormac McCarthy(1933-)is one of the greatest writers in American history.His work has a strong personal style,and the language is concise but profound.He is known as the only successor of Hemingway and Faulkner.Since the publication of his first novel Orchard Keeper in 1965,McCarthy has published ten novels and won wide acclaim worldwide.By writing the violent and cruel frontier,the dark and chaotic doomsday,McCarthy explores the profound problems of good and evil,life and death,and the mystery of human nature.He reveals the darkness of human nature and expresses great care and concern for human destiny in the novels.The novel The Road(2006),which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007,has aroused strong interest of scholars at home and abroad.They conducted extensive and in-depth researches from different perspectives.This post-apocalyptic novel on the theme of doomsday continues the author?s creative style with darkness,desolateness,and violence,but focuses on finding goodness and hope in the desperate doomsday.The novel describes the journey of a pair of father and son who struggle for survival after the disaster when human beings almost return to the primitive state of the jungle.On this endless road,faced with unknown livelihood and the evil of human nature,they continue to seek hope for survival in each other?s company.This thesis uses trauma theory to explore the initiation theme embodied in McCarthy?s novel The Road.The father and son,suffering physical and mental trauma which causes their conflict and fear,struggle to survive on the doomsday.The love and communication between the father and son gradually fill the gap between them,and their mutual support enables them to heal trauma and grow up together in the process of moving on.The father regains the spiritual sustenance and sublimates the morality and conscience under the influence of his son.Under the guidance of the father,the son gains survival skills and gradually adapts to the environment,with the hope to survive and courage to face the trauma.At the same time,the “9.11” event,as the creative background of the novel,makes this doomsday scene more realistic.The process of the father and son suffering trauma,healing trauma and growing after trauma has important guiding significance for contemporary society.To reinterpret and reflect on the trauma,this thesis is organized into three chapters:The first chapter analyzes the trauma of the father and son from both physical and mental aspects on the doomsday.The world is in ruin,since the disaster destroys all the natural environment and modern civilization.This is a more exaggerated reflection of the “9.11” event.The flashback of the traumatic events on the road,the continual nightmare of the father and son,and the numbness of the son and the self-blame of the father facing the mother?s suicide show their evasive attitude to the trauma.The second chapter analyzes the continuous healing of the father and son during the journey because of company and communication with each other.The father and son form inner conflicts and struggles when they come into contact with other people on the road.They gradually heal in this process;meanwhile,the meaning of survival puzzles them.The last chapter explains the further growth of the father and son after healing.Under the influence of his son,the moral spirit of the father is improved and he begins to face up to reality.The son keeps healing in this process and takes up the responsibility to human society by delivering the fire.What people need to do after the disaster is to confront the painful experience directly and grow up piece by piece.People should be firm in the faith and shoulder the responsibility of rebuilding a civilized society.To sum up,this thesis arrives at the conclusion that McCarthy shows the devastating impact of the disaster on human civilization by depicting a hostile and relentless doomsday replete with death and darkness.In the process of analyzing the trauma of the father and son,McCarthy?s interpretation of violence and trauma is discussed.The analysis of the “9.11” event can further stimulate readers? reflection on the modern crisis and deepen the enlightening meaning of the post-apocalyptic novel The Road to nowadays society.