On The Identity Construction Of Joe In The Round House From The Perspective Of Trauma

Louise Erdrich is one of the most important and accomplished authors in contemporary American literature,and is accredited as the representative of the second wave of the Native American Renaissance.The Round House,won her the National Book Award for Fiction in 2012.The story begins with a violent sexual assault against the Indian female “Geraldine”,and describes Joe’s quest for sovereignty and judicial justice under the tangled land ownership laws.At present,some scholars mainly concern with the traumas of the female characters,with few researchers exploring the identity construction of the narrator Joe guided by the trauma theory.Based on the careful reading of the novel,it is found the narrator Joe in The Round House,growing up in an environment full of racial discrimination and judicial injustice,has gone through an identity construction process from suffering trauma,to falling into an identity crisis due to trauma,and finally to healing trauma and constructing self identity.Therefore,this thesis attempts to analyze Joe’s loss and construction of self identity from the perspective of trauma theory.And by presenting Joe’s efforts to overcome trauma and construct his identity,this thesis demonstrates the possibility of the traumatized people to construct their identity after trauma recovery,thus providing some enlightenment for those injured Native Americans to overcome trauma and construct their identity.The first part includes an introduction to Louise Erdrich,studies on The Round House both at home and abroad,and the trauma theory.The main body part is divided into the following three chapters.The first chapter mainly elaborates on the causes and symptoms of Joe’s psychological trauma.Joe’s trauma stems from the sense of despair and helplessness after witnessing how the Native Americans suffered judicial injustice since the loss of tribal sovereignty;in addition,the broken family under the oppression of white racist deepens his traumatic experience.Joe’s traumatic symptoms are unfolded in the intrusion of nightmares and his constriction in thoughts.The second chapter expounds on Joe’s identity crisis.Caused by trauma,Joe’s identity crisis is mainly reflected in two aspects: confusion of cultural conflict and experience of social marginality.Trauma continuously affects Joe’s psychological state due to its belatedness,intrusiveness,and repetition,destroying his integrity and continuity.Joe begins to realize the specialty and ambiguity of “Native American”due to his traumatic experience,but the ensuing inferiority complex hinders his cognition of self-identity.The third chapter explores the manifestation of Joe’s construction of identity after his recovery from trauma.Joe overcame trauma through the reestablishment of a sense of safety and the reconnection with ordinary life.Meanwhile,through the integration with tribal religious belief,and the adherence to Chippewa history,the protagonist Joe combines his fate with the Native American ethnicity in the exploration of native history and belief,and converts the traumatic memories into the spiritual motivation and cultural root to integrate into society and to construct his own identity.In The Round House,Erdrich relates the historical roots of Native Americans’ living predicament and tries to find a way out for them,which reflects her humanistic care for the marginal Native Americans and her sense of social responsibility.Through the analysis from Joe’s experience of identity crisis to the identity reconstruction,this thesis is attempted to demonstrate that even though the existential condition is full of racial discrimination and violence that hinder the exploration of self-identity,those who adhere to their own culture and history can still walk through the traumas,confirm self-identity and enlarge their sovereignty in reality.