Trauma And Recovery:A Thematic Study Of Trauma In The American Civil War Fiction And Film Cold Mountain

Since its publication in1997, Cold Mountain has aroused the interest of both readers and critics greatly as an international bestseller. Some critics claim that Frazier has reset the Odysseus in the19th-century America. However, some critics shed special light on different aspects of the novel by exploring its themes concerning civil war, religion and humanity. Yet few critics have ever focused on the traumatic events described in the novel. Cold Mountain was adapted into the homonymous film in2003. This film is an immediate success which has kept the quintessence of the original novel and meanwhile deepened its traumatic theme. By representing the cruelties of the civil war, the film has recalled people’s further reflections on war and humanity.This film adaptation reflects various traumatic and posttraumatic stress reactions of film protagonists and soldiers. Aided by Judith Herman’s theory on trauma and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, the main focus of the thesis is to explore the traumatic themes embodied in the civil war fiction and film. Traumatic experiences have served as the inducement mechanism of dialectic behaviors among characters in the film. The central dialectic of psychological trauma of characters in the film Cold Mountain is marked by both denial and proclamation. Besides, the adapting strategies of Cold Mountain have made the characters’traumatic experiences more visualized and the traumatic effects have achieved culminated effects through characters’performances. Moreover, the healing process of people who have suffered from the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder begins with a rediscovery journey. By launching a self-discovery journey of finding lost identities, people who have suffered from the civil war’s atrocities reunite as a community and reconstruct a brand-new relationship differentiated with the former skeptical, defensive relations among human beings.