摘 要

斯蒂芬·克莱恩是美国著名的现实主义作家，其典型战争小说《红色英勇勋章》为其奠定了美国文坛不可动摇的地位。小说以美国南北战争为背景，以主人公弗莱明的战争经历为线索，描写出了主人公因面临战争的残酷而产生的复杂心理。

目前关于这篇小说的研究主题多集中在成长小说、自然主义上，关于小说中的创伤研究比较少。小说中作者着重描写主人公战争经历及心理成长历程，其折射出的战争创伤非常具有现实意义。因此，本文意图通过结合创伤理论和小说文本细度来研究《红色英勇勋章》，分析主人公的创伤经历及治愈过程，揭示战争给人带来的创伤，使更多人意识到战争的本质。

本文分为五个部分。在介绍部分，说明研究背景及介绍创伤小说，并介绍斯蒂芬·克莱恩和他的小说《红色英勇勋章》。第二部分主要介绍创伤的定义和创伤理论的发展，为后文奠基理论基础。第三部分具体分析了小说中的战争创伤，以弗莱明的创伤为主，表现出他的矛盾心理、失落无助，从而更好的传递战争的残酷性。第四部分重点探讨了小说中的创伤治愈以及指出正义战争也是治愈创伤的一种手段。最后一部分总结了全文，指出了创伤可治愈性，同时也呼吁了正义战争的必要性。

关键词：战争小说；创伤；治愈；正义战争

Abstract

Stephen Crane is an outstanding realistic novelist in American. His typical war fiction The Red Badge of Courage helps him establish an unshakable status in American literature. This novel describes Henry’s psychological complexity on the background of American Civil War by exhibiting his war experiences.

Research topics of this novel focus on grown-up novel, naturalism theme, but a few about war trauma. Crane focuses on war experiences and the psychological development of the protagonist. The theme of traumatic experiences he reveals has a practical significance. Therefore, this paper tries to combine trauma theory and textual analysis to study The Red Badge of Courage. It analyzes the protagonist’s trauma experiences and healing process. It reveals the trauma caused by war in order to make more people realize the essence of war.

This paper is composed of five parts. In the introductory part, the author will clarify the background and introduce trauma fiction, as well as the information on Stephen Crane and his novel, The Red Badge of Courage. The second part concentrates on the definition of trauma and the development of trauma theory, providing theoretical foundation for the paper. The third part analyzes traumas in the novel, centering on Henry’s ambivalence and his helplessness in order to convey the cruelty of the war. The fourth part focuses on the healing of war trauma. The author points out that the just war is a way to heal trauma. The last part summarizes the whole paper. It points out that war trauma is curable. At the same time, it calls for the necessity of just wars.

Key Words: War fiction; Trauma; Healing; Just war

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 The Significance and Structure of the Paper 1

1.2 Trauma Fiction 2

1.3 Stephen Crane and His Novel The Red Badge of Courage 2

2 Trauma Theory 4

2.1 Definition of Trauma ` 4

2.2 Three Stages of Trauma Theory 4

3 War Trauma in The Red Badge of Courage 6

3.1 The Cruelty of War 6

3.2 Trauma Caused by War 7

3.2.1 Endless Physical Pains Caused by War 7

3.2.2 Psychological Traumas Caused by War 8

4 Trauma Healing 11

4.1 Trauma Healings in The Red Badge of Courage 11

4.1.1 Searching for Hope 11

4.1.2 Rebuilding Identity as a Member 12

4.2 Necessity of Just Wars 13

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 17

An Analysis of Trauma as Effects of War in The Red Badge of Courage

1 Introduction

1.1 The Significance and Structure of the Paper

The Red Badge of Courage has gained extensive attention, making Crane a famous novelist at the age of twenty-four. It is now regarded as the most important work of Crane. For a long time, critics and scholars regard this novel as a puzzle because Crane makes excellent descriptions of war under the condition that he does not experience a battle personally. They tried to study this novel from different perspectives by using different research methods, and drew different conclusions. Studies on this novel can be divided into two aspects: novel of initiation and the theme of naturalism. For the first aspect, study such as A Study on the Red Badge of Courage as an Initiation Story by an English major, Ma Xiaojing, analyzes Henry’s psychological changes to prove that The Red Badge of Courage is a typical initiation novel(马晓婧,2012). For naturalism, scholars use the naturalism theory to explain the theme of the novel. And they reveal their understandings of individual values and social reality. And there are other researches such as the symbols in the novel, its effects on modern war novels and so on. In other words, much attention has been attached to the study of characters’ growth, naturalism theme and symbols. By comparison, war trauma, has lagged far behind but it deserves our profound research because of its practical meaning.

Therefore, it’s necessary and urgent to study trauma as effects of war in The Red Badge of Courage. Instead of giving details about the protagonist’ characters, or analyzing some symbols in the novel, this paper will focus on the protagonist’s physical and psychological traumas caused by war in order to reveal the cruelty of war. More specifically, war can cause a series of problems such as hysterical disorders, the traumatic neuroses, intrusions, constrictions and ultimate horrors. War does cause trauma on men, but it can make man stronger. The protagonist, as well as his comrades gradually overcame his inner fear and fought against the unjust war. Lastly, this paper points out that war trauma can be healed. What’s more, it makes men rethink their attitudes toward world peace and finally fight against unjust wars.

1.2 Trauma Fiction

Trauma is a modern topic. Trauma as a special memory, arouses a widespread interest in the 1980s. Trauma fiction refers to the fiction that describes the experiences of trauma victims. As a branch of fiction, trauma fiction does well in reproducing the spiritual world of traumatized people, bravely exploring relations between traumatized people and social history by combining professional knowledge of spiritual psychology and individuals’ life stories. In the literary world, the trauma fictions such as Heimingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, depict the cruelty of war, the sufferings from physical trauma, the risk of death and the torments of war survivors. Modern works start to think about the trauma consciousness, as well as the psychological perplexity and existential problems of traumatized people. Nowadays, trauma writings have been main media to turn the traumatic memory into words in order to help traumatized people get out of trauma. Geoffrey Hartman once said that “literary works has made trauma perceivable and silence heard” (Hartman. 2003, p.159). Ronald Granofsky points out that the literature is a place where the individual trauma at the centre of the fictional world turns to the horrors seen to reside at the heart of human nature” (Ronald, 1995) following World WarⅡ. Trauma fiction is a kind of literary form used to express various traumatic experiences. It makes people think how to avoid the reoccurrence of trauma experiences by alerting and guiding them. Trauma fiction is so important that we should study deeper so as to make literary practical for daily use and help more people overcome trauma memory.

1.3 Stephen Crane and His Novel The Red Badge of Courage