An Interpretation Of The Narrow Road To The Deep North From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a book written by Australian author Richard Flanagan who wins the Booker Prize in 2014 for this novel.The story is about Australian soldiers who are defeated in World War II,become prisoners of the Japanese army,and are forced to build the Thai-Burma Railway.Throughout the construction of the railroad,the captured Australian soldiers are subjected to inhumane violence and humiliation,and one in three workers on the Burma Death Railway die during the construction.These experiences exert an indelible psychological shadow on the soldiers so much so that it affects their normal lives for the rest of their lives.Therefore,this thesis interprets The Narrow Road to the Deep North from the perspective of trauma theory,using Freudian trauma theory to analyze and explore the psychological trauma that war brings to those who experiences it firsthand and its long-term effects on them,so as to draw attention to the survivors and their healing process,and ultimately to give them more humane care.This thesis consists of four chapters.The first chapter is a general introduction,introducing Richard Flanagan and the background of The Narrow Road to the Deep North,as well as an overall description of the structure and theoretical foundations of the thesis.The second chapter discusses the traumatic situations suffer by the main characters.It begins with an introduction to the causes of trauma formation for these characters,including the main character,Dorrigo Evans,the other surviving soldiers,and the perpetrators of violence.The focus is on the different factors that contribute to the psychology of trauma in different identities,followed by a description of the different manifest symptoms of their post-traumatic stress reactions.Especially the confusion in Dorrigo’s memory,and the mental disorder of the other soldiers.The third chapter deals with the various ways they try to redeem themselves,namely the sufferers’ quest to heal themselves and the abusers’ final struggle.It includes Dorrigo’s search for soulful self-help in his problematic marriage and the aura and pressure that comes with his being chosen as a war hero after the war,as well as the efforts of other surviving POWs who long to escape the shadow of war,and finally a psychological analysis of the abusers.The fourth chapter is a conclusion after analyzing the causes and consequences of the trauma of the main characters with the psychological theory of trauma.The following conclusions can be drawn from this paper.Firstly,through different characters’ perspectives,the psychological states of war participants from different positions in war situations are analyzed so it can reveal the phenomenon that different identities are traumatized in different ways during the war.Then,the in-depth analysis of the characters in the text with the help of Freud’s trauma theory enables people to have a more comprehensive understanding of post-war trauma and to adopt the correct psychoanalytic therapy to participate in the recovery process of traumatized people.