A Comparative Study Of Trauma Writing In Paul Auster’s Novels

This paper makes a comparative study of the three works written by Auster which focus on the present conditions of common American’s lives in the ten years before and after the 9/11 event,namely,The Brooklyn Follies,Man in the Dark and Sunset Park.Then it analyzes and summarizes the influence of his own traumatic experience on the novel creation,meanwhile it explores the similarities and differences in the themes and ways of presentation on traumatic writing in his different works.Therefore,it reveals how the writer describes the individual trauma to reflect the complex cultural and psychological characteristics of the times,and what significance it has for the reflection of modern living.This paper is divided into the following five parts:The introduction introduces the origin of this topic,and the current academic research on trauma narrative in related works,as well as the research ideas and methods.The first chapter mainly analyzes the influence of Auster’s own traumatic experience on the trauma writing in the three novels.Besides it tries to find out how Auster integrates his personal traumatic experience into his novel creation from three aspects including the his personal experience of the life plight brought about by the pain,as the American outlier to pursue his own Jewish national identity,and personally experienced major historical disastersThe second chapter mainly discusses the similarities and differences between the three novels on the theme of trauma.Starting from the trauma themes of disaster,war impact,interpersonal communication and individual predicament,which are embodied in these three works,it analyzes the different specific aspects of the three novels under the common themes and the different connotations conveyed by these aspects.The third chapter explores the similarities and differences between the three novels from the way of writing trauma.It mainly involves the analysis and demonstration of the different complex narrative perspectives,sensory trauma description along with the presentation and artistic effects of intertextuality techniquesThe epilogue summarizes the whole article.On the basis of summarizing and analyzing the characteristics of trauma writing in his three novels,it respectively studies the similarities and differences in terms of trauma theme and trauma writing,athen discusses the healing and relevant value and significance in trauma writing.