Psychological Trauma Of African American Women

Toni Morrison is one of the most influential contemporary writers in America and the only African American writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature up to now.Most of her works focus on the traumatic history of African American women.As such a representative novel,Beloved reveals profoundly African American women’s psychological trauma caused directly and indirectly by American racial slavery.Since its publication,scholars at home and abroad have studied this novel from different perspectives,including narratology,feminism,and magic realism.Although the theme of psychological trauma in the novel has been paid attention to,no systematic study deals with this aspect of the heroine,Sethe.Therefore,based on Judith Herman’s trauma theory,this paper attempts to explore Sethe’s psychological trauma,including its symptoms,causes,and her methods of recovery from it.According to Herman’s trauma theory,Sethe’s psychological trauma can be divided into three types: hyperarousal,intrusion and constriction.Hyperarousal is mainly reflected in her over-alertness to the external stimuli,abnormal behavior of infanticide and over-protection of her young daughter Denver.Intrusion takes the form of her memories of losing milk,having sex with an engraver,and her guilt complex for children.And constriction can be seen in her emotional numbness,the impairment of her partial sensory functions,and the exhaustion of her fighting spirit.There are two categories of factors for Sethe’s psychological trauma: family factors and social factors.As to the former,Sethe never enjoys adequate love from either her parents as a child or from her husband after her marriage.Besides,she is tormented by her own children’s twisted and alienated love.The latter can be divided into two periods.In the era of slavery,Sethe suffers from her master’s humiliating research and cruel punishment as well as her witnessing of the lynching of her race.After slavery,she experiences double isolation from both white society and black community.Sethe finally achieves her recovery from psychological trauma through three stages.The first step is to establish a safe environment.Sethe manages to escape from a plantation to a black community and lay a sound material foundation,which ensures her physical safety.The care of her relatives and neighbors and the emotional support from Paul D provide her with a sense of psychological safety.The second step is rememorizing and mourning.Sethe is able to transform her traumatic memories into normal ones by telling herself,her lover,Paul D and her daughters about her past traumatic experiences.The third is to reconstruct the connection with others.Sethe reestablishes her connection with the black community and her lover Paul D,leading to her normal course of life.In a word,Morrison expresses her deep concern and sympathy for African women in the United States by presenting vividly Sethe’s psychological trauma in Beloved.What’s more,the novel not only reveals African American women’s psychological trauma,but also points out a pathway to recover from it.