A Study Of Literary Traumatic Narratives

The term "trauma" is inseparable from the long history of mankind,and trauma has always exerted its unique power in the long process of human development.The original meaning of "trauma" refers to the physical damage caused to a person’s body by some external force.Since modern society,the connotation of trauma has expanded from physical injury to the spiritual field,and "trauma" not only refers to physical pain,but is more used to refer to mental trauma.The Austrian psychoanalyst Freud separated traumatic events from traumatic experiences through the study of neuroses,providing a psychological basis for people to enter into traumatic experiences.After World War II,Cathy Caruth,a Yale School trauma theorist in the United States,linked the intrinsic characteristics of trauma with literature,history,and culture,and her research became the beginning of the shift of the concept of trauma from the field of psychology to the field of literature.As an important territory for recording and healing human suffering,literature naturally regards trauma as an eternal expressive theme.The generalized trauma narrative presents history through memory and fiction,and reproduces real events through innovative artistic means,reflecting its aesthetic value and humanistic care.The narrow sense of trauma narrative is mainly the representation of trauma in the literary form,that is,literary trauma narrative.Literary trauma narrative refers to the representation of trauma with literary media as a means of expression and aesthetic form,and text is the main place for authors to construct traumatic experiences,express traumatic emotions,and carry out trauma healing.Traumatic experience is a passive,repetitive experience,but at the same time it is a fractured,delayed life experience,in the absence of integration,traumatic memories are preserved,and when they have the opportunity to recover,they become a complex and contradictory trauma narrative.Many literary works are related to individual or group trauma,and the symptoms of trauma are usually highlighted by writers,so the study of literary trauma narratives must analyze the expressive themes and narrative strategies of literary texts.The rise of trauma theory and research paradigm has enriched the strategy of trauma writing for literary scholars,and literary works can depict the process of traumatic events truthfully,accurately and wonderfully,making it powerful.The internal psychological mechanism of trauma is closely related to the structure of the work and narrative strategy,and overlaps with modern,postmodern,and postcolonial writing,showing the characteristics of fragmentation,stream of consciousness,and nonlinearity.In the special genre of literary trauma narrative,"trauma" is both a narrative theme and a narrative strategy.Under the background of the emergence of a large number of new media,literary trauma narratives are engulfed by capital and influenced by media culture,and take on an increasingly complex form.On the one hand,literary traumatic narratives face the threat of spectacle,postcolonialism,and a new wave of dominant narratives;On the other hand,text-mediated trauma narrative preserves its own advantages with unique narrative techniques and personalized narrative styles,and plays an irreplaceable role in deepening historical memory and moral and ethical orientation.For the author,the traumatic narrative of the victim is not only an act of constructing meaning,but also needs to obtain an impressive aesthetic form.For readers,it is not only necessary to assimilate the traumatic experience into individual consciousness,but also to think deeply about the relationship between trauma,media and narrative,and rely on the individual’s ability to empathize and communicate authentically to enter trauma.In contemporary society,people should attach importance to and give play to the practical value of literary trauma narratives,and consider whether artistic feelings can evoke people’s real moral responses and helpful behaviors,so that the pain of others can avoid becoming a material for public entertainment.At the same time,in the development process of literary trauma narrative,it is necessary to draw on interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives,expand diversified trauma themes,and draw on multi-media artistic techniques to face the problem of trauma narrative from a developmental perspective.Only in this way can we fit the current cultural background and establish a traumatic narrative that adapts to the development of the times.