Theme Of Trauma In Gwendolyn Brook’s World War Ⅱ Poems

Gwendolyn Brooks（1917-2000）is the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize and one of the most influential African American poets in the 20^thcentury.As a social poet,she wrote numerous poems about World War Ⅱ,including“Negro Hero,”“Gay Chaps at the Bar,”and Annie Allen,a book of poems.So far,research on her war poems focuses mainly on their forms and such themes as feminism and spatial narrative.Based on the trauma theory,this thesis attempts to explore the theme of psychological trauma in such poems.Trauma is a major theme in Brooks’s World War Ⅱ poems.The themes of trauma in her WWⅡ poems can be divided into three categories,that is,ethnic trauma,war trauma,and cultural trauma.In terms of symptoms,four types can be identified,including identity crisis,self-isolation,muted victim,and inferiority complex.They can be attributed to four factors,i.e.,racial segregation,devastation of war,collapse of faith system,and dominant cultural hegemony.To recover from such traumas,it’s necessary to reconstruct identity,mourn for the traumatic loss,and regain self-love.Based on these findings,it can be concluded that Brooks challenges official history writing in her World War Ⅱ poems by revealing the traumatic experiences of traumatized characters which are not fully and honestly narrated in official history.The traumas experienced by the traumatized are incurred by the horrors of the Second World War,as well as by the oppression and inequality in the American society,which even is the main cause.