On The Trauma And Recovery Of African Americans In Sing,Unburied,Sing

Jesmyn Ward is an excellent African-American young female novelist in contemporary American literature.She dedicates herself to depicting the living predicaments and miserable life of poor blacks in most of her works.Sing,Unburied,Sing,published in 2017,is Ward’s third novel and wins her the National Book Award for the second time.The novel focuses on a black family in the American rural south.From the perspectives of the biracial boy Jojo,his mother Leonie,and the black ghost Richie,the novel tells a story of a journey to Parchman prison(a Mississippi State Penitentiary)to retrieve Jojo’s white father,Michael.It presents a history intertwined with love and hate,struggle and trauma from the past to the present in American South.Based on trauma theory,this thesis makes a detailed analysis of Sing,Unburied,Sing to explore the symptoms and origins of trauma suffered by African Americans represented by Jojo’s family and tries to put forward feasible ways to help them recover from trauma,so as to provide guidance for the survival and development of African Americans in contemporary society.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter one mainly introduces the writing career of Jesmyn Ward,the plot and literature review of Sing,Unburied,Sing as well as the development of trauma theory.Chapter two analyzes the symptoms of trauma suffered by the three generations of blacks in this novel.As the direct victims of traumatic events,the old generations of blacks suffer both physical and psychological torments.They reexperience and avoid the traumatic experience back and forth in their daily life.They have persistent nightmares and indulge in alcohol and drugs,struggling with reality and illusion.They are always hypersensitive to traumatic experiences,and even a trivial thing can make them furious.What’s worse,in the transmission of trauma from generation to generation,the lack of safety and the sense of isolation become the common cultural psychology of black descendants.Chapter three explores the origins of black people’s trauma in this novel.As a marginalized group in American society,blacks have been treated unfairly for a long time.Slavery deprives the first generation of blacks of their freedom;the unjust criminal system infringes black people’s rightful rights;lynching and violence threaten black people’s lives;and the pervasive racial discrimination oppresses the black people and leads to their inequality in American society till now,leaving an indelible trauma in their collective memory.Chapter four mainly puts forward three ways to help blacks in this novel recover from trauma.Since they have been tortured for a long time,the black descendants should find ways to recover from trauma and live a normal life.By attaching to the black family,black people can establish their safety;By traumatic narration,black people can trace back to the truth of black history;By returning to black culture,black people can regain cultural confidence.Hence,black descendants can construct their own national identity,so that their trauma can be soothed.Chapter five makes a conclusion of the thesis.In this novel,Ward describes the life of blacks in South America with exquisite strokes.The trauma presented in this novel is not just concerned with individual trauma,which has also been internalized into the collective consciousness of contemporary black people.By depicting the three generations of blacks’ trauma,Ward calls for traumatized black people to recognize their history and recover from trauma.In the meanwhile,she also shows her deep concern for the whole African blacks.