Trauma Narrative In Wish You Were Here

Graham Swift,Booker Prize winner,is a celebrated writer in contemporary Britain.As an assiduous writer,Swift has already published nine novels,and most of them were translated into over thirty languages.Swift is good at revealing the vicissitudes of times by depicting human destinies.In Wish You Were Here(2015),he uses different strategies(imagery,metaphor,symbol,etc.)to display anxiety,misery and confusion of common people in Britain.Wish You Were Here demonstrates Swift's sophisticated writing skills.The novel starts with Ellie's leave from home and ends in her return,which becomes the core plot of the novel.Apart from the key plot,another three layers of plots are added.First comes Jack's journey of previous two days,then is his retrospection of his thirty-nine-year life,and the last is the stories of former generations.Assumption,retrospection,hallucination and explanation are delicately woven in the novel.Wish You Were Here is a trauma novel.The particularity of traumatic experience of the characters in the novel demands for specific narratives.Based on researches of Dominick Lacapra concerning the relationship between traumatic experience and narrative strategy,the thesis divides trauma representations into three categories: trauma evasion,trauma acting-out,and trauma working-through,thus manifesting narrative techniques,style and functions of Wish You Were Here.The thesis aims to help readers understand traumatized victims and the essence of traumatic issues.It also arouses readers' sympathy and ethic care for victims.The thesis is composed of an introduction,the main body and a conclusion.The introduction includes Swift's literary achievements,literature review of Wish You Were Here,trauma theory of Lacapra and thesis structure.The main body consists of three chapters: The first chapter focuses on narrative of trauma evasion and analyzes how narrators use specific narrative technique to avoid talking about trauma.Protagonists in the novel hope to find peace in heart through trauma evasion.They usually try to cover the cruelty of trauma events through the progressiveness of grand narrative.Ambiguity becomes the characteristic of narrative in trauma evasion.Narrators attempt to avoid talking about trauma with ambiguous words.Narrative possesses the function to display emotions of characters.Trauma evasion brings about confusion of self-identity and the baffling sense of loss.The second chapter approaches techniques that narrators adopt to act-out trauma.Due to the destructiveness of trauma events,the narration ability of trauma victims(narrators)are destroyed during the acting-out process.Narrator can't speak normally.As a result,narrators can represent traumatic experiences through unaccountable narratives.The unaccountable narrative manifests itself by repeating traumatic issues instead of telling plots.At this stage,in accordance with the unaccountable narrative,fragmented narration becomes the major characteristic of trauma acting-out.At the same time,sentimental feelings and disguised tranquility of characters are displayed.The third chapter centers on characters' recovery from trauma.Though characters recognize the existence of trauma,they are deeply trapped into their miserable past.So it's highly possible that trauma acting-out can't achieve its desirable effect.Thus,the next step-working through trauma,is urgent beyond words.On the one hand,this chapter pays attention to the relationship between carnival narrative,explicitness and trauma working-through and points out that traumatic events are recognized and represented in working-through narrative.On the other hand,as trauma victims recover from trauma experience,they are able to confront their unbearable past and to construct new understandings of their traumatic past.They no longer pity themselves and evolve from simply taking care of themselves to taking care of others.The thesis doesn't superficially analyze trauma symptoms of characters but concentrates on trauma experiences and studies the narrative of Wish You Were Here from the perspective of trauma.It is related to many motifs like narrative,trauma,emotions and etc.It has comprehensively analyzed themes and writing styles of the novel.The combination of trauma study and narratology is where thesis innovation lies.The realistic meaning in trauma representation asks common people to take trauma into consideration.Only when they introspect on their traumatic experiences can they treasure current life.