Trauma Writing In Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad

As a rising star in American literary circle,the African American writer Colson Whitehead(1969-)has attracted much attention in recent years,and Time praised him as “one of the greatest American writers alive”.The Underground Railroad,the sixth novel of Whitehead,wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award.This novel,which is set before the American Civil War,delineates a slave girl Cora’s traumatic escape journey from the south to the north.And it fully demonstrates the persecution of slavery on blacks,especially black women.The academic research on The Underground Railroad has mainly focused on the initiation,historical writing,narrative and other perspectives so far.This thesis mainly interprets the trauma themes of this novel based on trauma theory.Going deep into the narrative texture of the novel,it explores the narrative techniques which the presentation of trauma themes depend on.And this thesis further discusses Whitehead’s exploration of healing trauma and his concern for the racial reality of contemporary American society.This thesis consists of five parts.The first part briefly introduces Colson Whitehead,his works and achievements,and mainly focuses on The Underground Railroad.And it systematically sorts out the research results and development of The Underground Railroad at home and abroad.Then this thesis interprets the trauma theory as a theoretical support for further analysis and clarifies the research significance of this thesis.Chapter One analyzes the trauma themes embodied in the text on the basis of trauma theory and close reading.According to the source of trauma,the protagonist’s trauma in The Underground Railroad is divided into family trauma,gender trauma and racial trauma.The themes are interpreted through the analysis of traumatic events experienced and witnessed by Cora,and her traumatic symptoms.Furthermore,through Cora’s individual trauma,the novel reflects the collective trauma of African Americans under slavery,showing the marginalized living state of the blacks and the survival plight of black women under the oppression of racism and sexism.Chapter Two mainly explores the narrative techniques employed by Whitehead in order to present trauma.Whitehead masters classical and post-modern narrative techniques to interpret the characteristics and aftermath of trauma,including repetition,intertextuality,shifting focalization and narrative gap.Chapter Three mainly discusses Whitehead’s exploration of healing trauma and his reflection on the racial reality of America.Based on Whitehead’s own experience and writing,it mainly discusses his “trauma and self-healing”.From Cora’s perspective,this thesis analyzes ways of self-healing,which relieve her multiple traumas.Meanwhile,the process of healing is also the process of self-reconstruction.Besides,the collapse of the utopian farm and the open ending reflect that Cora’s racial trauma is hard to heal,embodying Whitehead’s worries about the current racial situation in America.The last part is the conclusion.Through condensed time,Whitehead conveys hundreds of years of African American trauma into Cora’s journey,reflecting the destruction of slavery upon family and the survival plight of black women under the oppression of racism and sexism.In addition,Whitehead combines classical and postmodern narrative techniques to construct Cora’s trauma,making this fiction have a high aesthetic value.Besides,Whitehead discovers that only by confronting trauma can the African Americans be healed.The trauma writing in The Underground Railroad embodies Whitehead’s responsibility and mission as an African-American writer,and urges readers to confront and reflect on the traumatic history of African Americans that has been deliberately downplayed.