A Study Of The Trauma Theme In Toni Morrison’s Love

Born in 1930s’ America,Toni Morrison is one of the most important writers in American black literature.As an Africa-American,Morrison identifies a lot from her living circumstance.Morrison’s depiction concentrates on black family in which people can observe an authentic,complex and miserable world.Love as her eighth novel,was published in 2003.A slightly different from her former works,Love possesses a unique narrator.Here,family is set in a peculiar situation where it functions both as sensibility harbor and mental prison.The thesis,based on trauma theory,tries to analyze the conspicuous sufferings in the novel.Through the analysis of characters’ inner world and behaviors,readers can observe a community’s spiritual condition in a particular era.There are six parts included in the thesis.Firstly,the author Toni Morrison and her Love are introduced.It also clarifies the history of trauma theory and reviews literature of Love.Secondly,it mainly discusses the individual trauma.From the traumatic reason,traumatic symptoms and its consequences,this part intensively analyzes the four characters’ mental conditions.Then the thesis focuses on collective trauma.It cites collective traumatic reasons,traumatic symptoms and consequences too.Following trauma analyses,it consecutively intends to explore trans-generational development of trauma,revealing the essence of traumatic transition and argues the results.Finally,thesis illustrates the ultimate ends of trauma and draws a conclusion of the whole arguments.From the perspective of trauma theory,the thesis attempts to make up certain blank in the research on Love.In exploring people’s mental world,it digs the black community’s hopeless mental world,which in a sense brings new materials for later studies.