African American Historical Traumas In Paul Beatty’s The Sellout

In 2016,Paul Beatty’s novel The Sellout won Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award.Historian Amanda Foreman,chair of the five-judge Man Booker panel,commented that The Sellout “slays sacred cows with abandon and takes aim at racial and political taboos with wit,verve,and a snarl.” This novel depicts the living conditions of several generations of African Americans in Dickens town,a black ghetto in Los Angeles,South California,highlighting their suffering and struggles under the long-term existential dilemma and predicament.Behind the seemingly absurd plots,personalities and behavior patterns of characters presented in this novel are the interaction and collision among the individual fates,the living environment of African Americans and the history of American society.From the perspective of historical trauma,this thesis studies the manifestations of historical trauma suffered by African Americans in Dickens,the sociocultural causes of their traumas,and their reactions to the historical traumas.This thesis consists of five parts.The introduction involves the overview of the novel,the literature review at home and abroad,the theoretical framework of trauma and historical trauma,and the framework of this thesis.The main body of the thesis includes three chapters:Chapter One discusses the manifestations of historical trauma and its intergenerational transmission and negative social complications suffered by different generations of African American Dickens residents under corresponding eras and social environments.It draws on the work of psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman,who categorizes symptoms of PTSD into three main types: intrusion,hyperarousal,and constriction and thus is divided into three sections,each discussing one type of symptom.Through detailed explication of abnormal personalities,mentalities,and conducts of traumatized characters,this chapter aims to reveal historical trauma as a common experience among African American groups.Chapter Two focuses on the sociocultural causes of the Dickens residents’ historical traumas.It analyzes from three aspects(economic and political systems,justice system,and culture/ideology)to illustrate the subjugation of the African American community by the dominance of racist American society.The chapter discusses how these complicated,long-term,and deep-rooted sociohistorical and political factors combined with institutional racism outline the miserable living states of the African American community and the sociocultural roots of their historical trauma experiences.Chapter Three discusses the different responses to historical traumas presented by Dickens residents and evaluates the agency and efficacy of their responses to the traumas.It demonstrates three types of response to historical trauma: evading trauma,distorting trauma,and working through trauma.The first section discusses Hominy’s evasive attitude and unconsciously compulsive acting-out.The second section discusses F.K.Me and Foy Cheshire’s fixation on their self-consciousness,which leads to whitewash and generalization of historical trauma.The third section discusses how Dickens residents achieve working through historical trauma to counteract its negative impacts through effective transference,conscious recollection of the past traumatic events as well as the formation of collective consciousness in the way of mourning.In the conclusion part,the thesis points out that the writing of African American historical trauma in the novel re-examines the racial relations in American history and society and debunks the false illusion of racial equality.At the same time,through the all-around representation of historical traumas among African Americans,the novel reproduces indelible historical memories and constructs a critical cognition of history.In addition,the description of the process of “working through” traumas by African American individuals and community arouses African Americans’ reflection on the dialectical relationship between history and reality,and reshapes their ethnic identity and collective consciousness,and thus has enlightenment significance for the repair of African American historical trauma at a broader level.