Trauma And Memory

This paper takes novels and movies around the Nanjing Massacre as the main research object from two perspectives: trauma and memory.It first explains the aesthetic problems and memorial dilemmas faced by the Nanjing Massacre narratives,summarizes three basic modes about writing the Massacre,and discuss a series of defects.In the “post-memory” era,these dilemmas have been highlighted to the extent that are unavoidable.The Nanjing Massacre narratives turn to a new cultural symptom.Finally,the fundamental contradiction of the Massacre narratives,that is,the relationship between the real history and the form of literature is concluded.This paper is divided into three core parts.The first part discusses the narrative anxiety of the trauma of the Nanjing Massacre.It analyzes the embarrassing situation for artistic aesthetics of the Nanjing Massacre narratives by analyzing the works with strong documentary color published at the beginning of the war.Meanwhile,the collective memory theory is introduced to focus on how the Nanjing Massacre comes to a narrative dilemma that the dead cannot speak and the living cannot be heard.The second part summarizes three current basic modes for writing the Nanjing Massacre.One is to concentrate on the past and to talk about “the center of darkness”.Another is to adopt the sideward writing and describe the war indirectly.The last is to discipline the trauma of the Nanjing Massacre by forgetting and artistic processing based on the present.Taking the historical scene that the prostitutes substituted others’ lives with their sacrifices as an example,this paper sorts out how the acceptance of the Nanjing Massacre trauma turns from “history” to “poetry” in the new era,and the effects of the writing techniques “singing with a fake voice” in healing the trauma.The third part investigates the new cultural symptoms of the Nanjing Massacre narratives in the “post-memory” era.This paper re-enters the explanation of the Nanjing Massacre from three dimensions: nationalism and humanitarianism,forgiveness and the voice of the victims,and the gap between the audiences and the memory of sufferings.The relationship between the historical reality and the literal form of the Massacre is concluded.Facing with the brutal history of the Massacre,literature and art should take the responsibilities.