Trauma And Recovery:On The Traumatic Writing In The Great Fire

The Great Fire narrates a love story in the post-war period that transcends ethics,distance and time.Its text contains profound gender discourse and national discourse shows the unique aesthetic value of trauma in the narrative aspect.As the transnational writer,Shirley Hazzard,with unique multicultural perspective,reproduced the tragic story of people in the world after the WWⅡ,providing the “present or absent” of trauma patients with solutions to overcome the trauma suffering from memory.The first chapter mainly includes three parts: the relationship between Shirley Hazzard’s life experience and her trauma writing,the theoretical development of trauma literature,and the literature review of the novel The Great Fire at home and abroad.Through the above three statements,we can see the feasibility and innovation of the trauma criticism of The Great Fire.The second chapter makes a close reading of the text of The Great Fire,interpreting the trauma theme from the perspective of individual trauma and collective trauma,and reveals that Shirley Hazzard’s profound thinking on gender,ethnicity and race coincides with her humanistic thoughts.The third chapter mainly analyzes the trauma narrative techniques in The Great Fire through the non-linear narrative time,the leaping narrative space,and the delicate sensory description.The interleaving of narrative time sequence is coordinated with the transformation of narrative space.In terms of narrative time,although the main line of The Great Fire is only about one year,the whole story is shuttling back and forth between the past memories of the protagonists: Leith,Peter and Helen and the present.In the aspect of narrative space,it mainly analyzes the trauma narrative of the novel through the family space--the transformation of Britain and Australia,the diaspora space before and after the war--Egypt,Italy,Japan,China,etc..In terms of the structure of The Great Fire,the setting of the sub-plot of the protagonist’s search for the central point or love plays a role in blocking the main line,that is,the time sequence of the war trauma between the protagonist Leith and Peter.Therefore,the juxtaposition of plot and sub-plot gives the novel a synchronic narrative space structure,and the unique flow structure of the trauma theme indicates that the various traumas in the novel are universal in today’s globalized human society.The fourth chapter focuses on the practical significance of trauma writing in The Great Fire.Shirley Hazzard constructed her own aesthetic system of trauma writing through her sharp brushwork and nuanced trauma thinking in The Great Fire.At the same time,through the group image performance in The Great Fire,she presents the path of trauma healing to readers by comparing the positive and negative aspects,and reflecting her humanistic thinking on post-trauma reconstruction.The last chapter is the concluding part,which sums up the value of Shirley Hazzard’s trauma writing.A writer who can still quietly think about the past in a peaceful era,will heal the survivors with love.In the subject of diaspora and reconstruction,Shirley Hazzard presents readers with the unique and subtle charm of trauma writing.