Reading Trauma Narratives

The Contemporary Novel and the Psychology of Oppression

Laurie Vickroy

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780813937373
• eBook ISBN: 9780813937397
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

As part of the contemporary reassessment of trauma that goes beyond Freudian psychoanalysis, Laurie Vickroy theorizes trauma in the context of psychological, literary, and cultural criticism. Focusing on novels by Margaret Atwood, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Jeanette Winterson, and Chuck Palahniuk, she shows how these writers try to enlarge our understanding of the relationship between individual traumas and the social forces of injustice, oppression, and objectification. Further, she argues, their work provides striking examples of how the devastating effects of trauma—whether sexual, socioeconomic, or racial—on individual personality can be depicted in narrative.

Vickroy offers a unique blend of interpretive frameworks. She draws on theories of trauma and narrative to analyze the ways in which her selected texts engage readers both cognitively and ethically—immersing them in, and yet providing perspective on, the flawed thinking and behavior of the traumatized and revealing how the psychology of fear can be a driving force for individuals as well as for society. Through this engagement, these writers enable readers to understand their own roles in systems of power and how they internalize the ideologies of those systems.

Index

Absalom, Absalom! (Faulkner), 22–23, 24–25, 100–131

African American history, 67, 75

Alexander, Jeffrey, 77

Alias Grace (Atwood), 10, 13, 22, 37–38, 49–60, 62–63; and ethics, 59–60, 62–63, 64; and quilting, 58–59

Ashcroft, Bill, 17

Atwood, Margaret, 33–34; Alias Grace, 10, 13, 22, 37–38, 49–60, 62–63; The Blind Assassin, 19–20, 21–22, 25, 31, 38–39, 40–49; Canadian history, 36–40; Cat’s Eye, 25; “In Search of Alias Grace,” 39; “Notes on Power Politics,” 38, 48–49; and power, 33, 48–49; “Spotty-Handed Villianesses,” 64

Beloved (Morrison), 63–64, 86

Blackford, Holly, 57–58

Blind Assassin, The (Atwood), 19–20, 21–22, 25, 31, 38–39, 40–49, 60–61; and ethics, 46–48, 60–61,

borderline personality, 158, 172–73

Bouson, J. Brooks, 42, 68, 73, 75, 76

Bray Haddock, Deborah, 52–53, 163, 164, 175

Brooks, Peter, 105, 127

Brown, Laura S., 7

Cantiello, Jessica Wells, 69

Caruth, Cathy, 7

Cobb-Moore, Geneva, 70

cognitive psychology, and narrative, 21, 22

Comer-Kidd, David, and Emanuele Costano, 2, 32, 179–80

commodification, 100, 101

Cooke, Natalie, 54

Crockett, Norman L., 68

cultural carriers of trauma, 77

culture and behavior, 17, 18

Damasio, Antonio, 6, 21

Darroch, Heidi, 56

denigration, and effects on personality, 12

de Vries, Marten, trauma and culture, 9

dissociative identity disorder, 163–64

Donaldson, Susan V., 129

dreams as depictions of trauma, 25, 44, 53–55

Edwards, Justin D., 51, 63

Ellam, Julie, 143, 144

Emmott, Catherine, 33

Erikson, Kai, 7

ethics: and narrative, 26–27, 29, 34; and trauma, 27–28

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Ways of Reading Trauma in Literary Narratives
• One: Re-creating the Split Self in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace
• Two: Fear and Commodification in the Shaping of America in Toni Morrison’s Paradise and A Mercy
• Three: Obsessions and Possessions in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!
• Four: The Traumas of Love and Death in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body
• Five: Trauma, Gender, and Commodification in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Invisible Monsters
• Conclusion: Trauma as a Critical Juncture of Society, Culture, and Human Psychology
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index