An Analysis Of The Winter Of Our Discontent From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

John Steinbeck,who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962,is one of the most distinguished American novelists in the 20^th century.He has produced many works,among which The Grapes of Wrath is his masterpiece.The Winter of Our Discontent is his last long novel,which tells a harrowing but reflective story about the protagonist Ethan.He returns to his hometown with full enthusiasm after the ordeal from his college life and the second world war,but finds that the erstwhile simple and unsophisticated relationship between people is gone and that under the deep influence of the capitalist industrialization and consumption culture,he has to be entangled into a survival game in which the governmental officials collude with businessmen and personal interests become the top priority.Thus,it makes him struggle with material wealth,degenerate into a bad person and suffer a great psychological trauma.But he eventually awakes from the torture of his conscience and gradually heads to trauma recovery.This thesis,from the perspective of trauma theory,attempts to comprehensively explore Ethan’s trauma from the following three aspects:Ethan’s traumatic symptoms,the reasons of his trauma and his traumatic recovery.After a detailed analysis of the text,the study shows that the quick development of the capitalist industrialization in the post-war American society,the money-oriented consumer society and the great pressure from his family all bring Ethan a great psychological trauma and force him to be a victim of the alienated interpersonal relationship in that society.But his reminiscence of his traumatic memories,the establishment of his sense of safety and the reconstruction of his moral sense eventually facilitate him to recover from his psychological trauma.This thesis consists of three parts:the introduction part,body part and conclusion part.The introduction part first includes a brief introduction to the author John Steinbeck and his work The Winter of Our Discontent,sorts out the extant researches about this novel by scholars from both at home and abroad,then introduces trauma theory mainly represented by Judith Herman and Cathy Caruth,and finally points out the significance of this study as well as the organization of this thesis.The body part is made of three chapters.The first chapter analyzes Ethan’s traumatic symptoms.The second chapter mainly explores the reasons which trigger Ethan’s trauma.The third chapter focuses on Ethan’s recovery from his psychological trauma.And the last part is the conclusion part,summarizing the former three chapters and drawing a conclusion that the society where money and individual interests are the most important thing brings helpless people great psychological trauma,but they can eventually recuperate from their trauma and restore to what they used to be with the assistance of others and their own efforts.Meanwhile,through a study on this novel,it can also reflect Steinbeck’s strong criticism on the American society in the 1960s and his deep sympathy for the people at the bottom of society.