A Study Of The Protagonist's Traumatic Memory In Mr.Sammler's Planet

The American Jewish writer Saul Bellow is regarded as one of the most influential contemporary American novelists after William Faulkner and Earnest Hemingway.Mr.Sammler's Planet is his representative novel,and it won the National Book Award in 1971.This novel settled from the Holocaust Concentration Camp during the Second World War to the Upper West Side of New York City in the 1960 s.It is a story of the protagonist Mr.Artur Sammler's three days in America.According to the existing research achievements,researchers in China and western countries mainly interpret this novel from Jewishness,feminism,alienation,and so on.Most focus on the state of life of the Jewish community in postwar America.Inspired by the theory of traumatic memory,this thesis takes America in the 1960 s and the Concentration Camp during the Holocaust as the social background,and begins with the realistic predicament of Sammler who is a victim of the Holocaust and a Jewish refugee.It analyzes the recurrence of Sammler's traumatic memory at the present moment,exploits the origins of Sammler's traumatic memory in the past events,and explores the recovery of Sammler's traumatic memory for the changes in the future.In terms of the time of the present,past and future,this thesis argues that the author Bellow exhibits Sammler's traumatic memory through literary imagination,which is conductive to the repair of the individual's trauma and the reflection of the community's history.This thesis focuses on the protagonist Sammler's traumatic memory,analyzes the recurrence of his traumatic memory at present,exploits the origins of his traumatic memory in the past,and thus explores the recovery of his traumatic memory in the future.The first chapter analyzes the recurrence of Sammler's traumatic memory at the present moment from the activation events,storage methods and recurrence approach.As a survivor of the Holocaust during the Second World War,Sammler encountered violence and crime again in turbulent New York in the 1960 s.The outbreak of the Six-Day War and the witness of the stealing of a black pickpocket awaken Sammler's fear of death,which is related to his traumatic experience of being persecuted by the Nazis and being buried alive in the Concentration Camp.Whereas,due to his intermittent aphasia,Sammler's traumatic memories lack verbal narrative and are encoded in the form of vivid sensations and images.The sensations and images of being buried crystallize his traumatic experience and become“death imprint” and “indelible images” in his memory.Sammler,who has experienced the traumatic past,chooses to keep silent,while his memory keeps flashing back to the past.Traumatic scenes in his memory increasingly vivid amid the tension of suppression and reenactment.The second chapter exploits the origins of Sammler's traumatic memory in the past events.Sammler's fear of bereavement is activated when his only daughter is in danger in New York.His fear is rooted in his traumatic memory of witnessing the death of his wife in the Concentration Camp.The image of his wife's death haunts him,which makes him feel guilty and lose his normal capacity for love.In addition,when his nephew,who funds him to live in the United States,is seriously ill.He faces with the survival crisis of losing his asylum and falling back into turmoil again.His fear of uncertainty comes from his memory of being buried alive during the Second World War and hiding in the grave in the process of decamping.In fact,the origin of Sammler's trauma that leads to his disregard for human life can be traced back to his experience of shooting unarmed German soldiers in the Second World War.The vengeful rage and the killing pleasure that strip him of his dignity and rationality as a human being.The third chapter explores the recovery of Sammler's traumatic memory for the future changes from the perspective of his diverse identities.As a representative character,Sammler has different identities which provide him diverse perspectives on recording and narrating his traumatic memory.As a victim of the Second World War,Sammler narrates the traumatic events,and accuses the brutality of war.As a survivor of the Holocaust,Sammler records the atrocity of the Nazis and returns to the traumatic scenes to explore the reasons for the discrimination suffered by the Jews and the way out of the predicament.As a correspondent,who is the observer of the human society,Sammler records and tells the historical truth which is a necessary way to review his traumatic history and face his traumatic memory.In addition,Sammler's reflection on the impact of traumatic memory on the Jewish community serves torecall personal trauma,reflect social problems,and deliver the faith to restore order of human society.This thesis starts from recognizing the recurrence of Sammler's traumatic memory at present,tracing the origins of his traumatic memory in the past,and prospecting the recovery of his traumatic memory for the future.For Sammler,a Holocaust survivor and a Jewish immigrant,recalling traumatic events and recounting traumatic memories is a way to repair trauma and pass on memories.As for the Jewish community and even the whole human society,it is an attempt to reflect on history and restore order.It is through the literary medium of memory that the writer Bellow stores the history,spreads faith and plans for the future.