The Traumatic Analysis of James Lee in Everything I Never Told You_英语论文

摘要

女作家伍绮诗是美国华裔文学备受瞩目的新星，她的首部小说《无声告白》在2014年一经发表便当选亚马逊年度小说。这部小说以16岁少女莉迪亚的突然死亡为开端，逐步揭开了一个跨种族家庭里每个家庭成员隐藏的心理创伤。目前学者们对这部小说的研究主要集中在种族认同和女性主义两个方面，却很少有人关注主人公遭受的心理创伤。但是小说对遭受种族创伤的华裔主人公詹姆斯·李的创伤经历进行了相当多的描述，表达了作者对心理创伤的关注。本文将采用创伤理论与文本结合的方式，分别从创伤表现、创伤原因和创伤治疗三方面对《无声告白》中詹姆斯·李的创伤经历进行详细分析。希望通过研究美国华人的创伤经历，能引起人们对美国华人困境的关注，并为他们积极治愈创伤提供参考和启示。

关键词：《无声告白》  创伤  症状  原因

Abstract

Celeste Ng is a new representative of Chinese American literature, whose first novel, Everything I Never Told You, was elected as Amazon's annual novel in 2014. Starting with the sudden death of a 16-year-old girl, Lydia, the novel gradually reveals the psychological trauma hidden by each member of an inter-racial family. At present, the research for the novel is focused on two aspects: the racial identity and the feminism, but the detailed study on the protagonist from the perspective of trauma theory is neglected. However, there are considerable descriptions of traumatic experience of James Lee, an American Chinese man who suffered from racial trauma, demonstrating the writer’s special concern for psychological trauma. This thesis will employ trauma theory to analyze the trauma experience of James Lee from three aspects: trauma symptom, trauma cause and trauma treatment. It intends to arouse people's attention to the plight of American Chinese people by studying their traumatic experiences, and to provide some reference and inspiration for them to actively heal their trauma.

Key words: Everything I Never Told You  trauma  symptom  cause

Contents

Chapter one  Introduction 1

1.1  A Brief Introduction to Celeste Ng 1

1.2  A Brief Introduction to Everything I Never Told You 2

1.3  Purpose of the Thesis 3

1.4  Structure of the Thesis 5

Chapter two  Literature Review 6

2.1  Previous Studies on Everything I Never Told You Abroad 6

2.2  Previous Studies on Everything I Never Told You at Home 7

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 9

3.1  The Development of Trauma Theory 9

3.2  The Content of Trauma Theory 10

3.2.1 Traumatic Symptom 10

3.2.2 Traumatic Cause and Recovery 11

3.3  The Application of Trauma Theory in Literature 12

Chapter Four  Discussion 13

4.1  Traumatic Symptoms 13

4.1.1 Hyperarousal: Insecurity and Fear 13

4.1.2 Intrusion: Flashback of Humiliating Memory 14

4.1.3 Constriction: Isolation and Avoidance 15

4.2  Traumatic Causes 16

4.2.1 Traumatic Events in Individual Trauma 16

4.2.2 Traumatic Factors in Culture 17

4.3  Traumatic Treatments 18

Chapter Five  Conclusion 21

5.1 Major Findings 21

5.2 Limitation 22

Bibliography

Acknowledgments