Decoding The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao From The Perspective Of Trauma Theory

Junot Diaz, a Dominican-American writer, is regarded as a promising rising starin American literary circles. His novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao waspublished in2007. It was another great success after his first novel Drown. The novelhas related the saga of a family under tyranny of Trujillo. It has the same themes asthose of Diaz’s first novel Drown: immigrants, diasporas, and trauma.This dissertation tries to use trauma theory to analyze this work of Diaz, in thehope of revealing the pain and destructions felt by people in the once colonizedcountry in postcolonial society. Through the analysis of trauma theory, its earlydevelopment and formation, its current application and the traumas in this novel, thisthesis tries to bring the suffering of the victimized into the light and reveals thattrauma effects can leak through generations to disturb the life of more than onegeneration.The thesis also aims at analyzing trauma symptoms of characters and how theyfinally get reconciled with their trauma experience. There are different methods takenby the characters to reach reconciliation, including writing, outpouring, and the use ofmarginalized items.Through the analysis of the three stylistic devices of trauma fiction, namely,repetition, intertexuality and disorder of time, this thesis tries to give the readers abetter understanding of this novel. Through applying these devices, the authorconveys the enormous and substantial harm shouldered by the persecuted.This thesis is different by studying the novel from the perspective of trauma. Theprevious studies are largely dedicated to the themes of post colonialism and identitycrisis. The perspective of trauma theory was rarely mentioned and not carefullystudied. Therefore, I hope this thesis can help to reveal the author’s intention ofawakening the feeling of Dominican people and helping them walk out of thetraumatic experiences.