The Traumatic Writing In Australian Post-9/11 Novels

9/11 event is the most catastrophic serial terrorist attacks that have ever happened in American mainland,which not only causes huge numbers of deaths and injuries and tremendous financial losses,but also brings great mental panic and psychic trauma to the public.Shortly after the attacks,America military forces started to arm themselves to teeth and launched a series of global counter-terrorism actions including two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Meanwhile,9/11 event also gives birth to the post-9/11 literature.America,as the biggest victim,naturally becomes the most impressive both in terms of the number of works and their literary contribution.American post-9/11 novels mainly eschew the direct description on the terrorist event,but shift their focus on the way how to present myriads of survival difficulties confronted by the masses who find it hard to relive a peaceful life due to the incurable psychic trauma after events.With the emphasis on traumatic writing,they express the denouncements of brutal crimes of the terrorists and deliver a consensus of American innocence in the public.Although Australian post-9/11 novels cannot be equivalent to Americans,it must be admitted that Australian post-9/11 novels have their own features and innovations where the writers shift their writing perspective from traumatic writing of the victims of 9/11 event to the terrorist events and innocent people who are involved in counter-terrorism activities to deeply reflect the national discourse behind the event with a critical standpoint,and reveal the absurdity of resorting terror to fight terror.Australian writer Janette Turner Hospital is internationally renowned in the contemporary literary world.Her works have been published in Australia,Canada,England,the United States and other countries.The widespread availability of Hospital’s works indicates the degree to which publishers and readers value her works.Therefore,Hospital won 2003 Patrick White Award(Australia)for literary achievement.Her two masterpieces Due Preparations for the Plague and Orpheus Lost are the direct responses to 9/11 attacks,whose traumatic writing is typical of Australian post 9/11 literature.This thesis is composed of seven chapters.The first chapter embodies the following parts: one is a general introduction to the literary achievement of Janette Turner Hospital and the main plot of her two works Due Preparation for the Plague and Orpheus Lost and the second part is a brief introduction to Australian Post-9/11 Novels,then makes a literature review of Janette Turner Hospital as well as estimates the significance of this thesis and providing a framework.The second chapter summarizes the central argument of this thesis and research methodology through unraveling the beginning,development and new directions of trauma theories.To reveal the author’s criticism of terrorism,the third chapter focuses on both the victimizer and victim’s traumatic symptoms,including traumatic repetition and belatedness,trauma’s dissociation and repression,and traumatic witness and intergenerational transmission.The fourth chapter is devoted to the analysis of the underlying causes of trauma at four levels: guilt and disconnection on individual level,the alienation of people and religion by terrorism on religious level,the truth hidden by the media and government on political level and the clash of civilizations on cultural levels.The fifth chapter illustrates how people recover from trauma,and concludes four methods of recovery: natural environment,music,talk cure as well as love and reconciliation.The sixth chapter explores the originalities of Australian post-9/11 novels represented in these two novels in which Hospital entitles the dead and the terrorist’s speaking rights and defends for Religion and Middle-East people,claiming that they are victims as well.The seventh chapter makes a conclusion on J.T.H’s traumatic writing in a time of terror and critical thinking of terrorism and resorting to terror to fight terror by American government.She believes nobody wins in the fight,moreover,counter-terrorist actions of resorting to violence aggravate traumas left by terrorism.Only true communication and respect between cross-racial,religious,and cultural can prevent violence and death.