摘 要

《八月之光》是美国作家威廉·福克纳创作的长篇小说，也是其代表作之一。在作家创造的“约克纳帕塔法世系”中占有重要位置。在《八月之光》中，福克纳成功地塑造了形形色色行为异常的人物,由于社会及个人原因,这些人物有着不同程度的精神创伤。本文试图运用创伤理论解析《八月之光》主人公乔·克里斯默斯的悲剧命运。创伤视角下对文本的研究不但有其深刻的文学意义，而且对当今时代也具有广泛的现实意义。

本文在全面认识创伤理论的基础上，将分为五个章节。第一章对作者与小说以及指导理论进行简单介绍。第二章将分析主人公的悲剧命运。第三章主要讨论导致乔·克里斯莫斯命运悲剧的创伤及影响。第四章分析创伤复原以及悲剧避免的可能性。最后，进行总结并得出结论——无法修复的创伤导致了乔·克里斯莫斯的悲剧命运。

关键词：《八月之光》；创伤理论；乔·克里斯默斯；悲剧

Abstract

Light in August is one of the masterpieces of William Faulkner, which plays an important role in the "napalta law system of York". In Light in August, Faulkner successfully created all kinds of characters with abnormal behaviors which because of different degrees of mental traumas for social or personal reasons. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze the tragic character, Joe Christmas, from the perspective of trauma theory. The study of text under the perspective of trauma theory not only has the profound literary significance, but also has the widespread practical significance in contemporary society.

On the basis of all-round understanding of trauma theory, the body of the paper will be divided into five parts. In the first chapter, it tells the relevant information of the author and the novel, the basic theory, literary review and thesis statement. In the second part, the paper will analyze tragic life of Christmas. As for the third chapter, the trauma that caused the miserable life will be cussed. And the fourth part is about the possibilities of recovery and the reversion tragedy. The final part is the conclusion that the irretrievable trauma caused the tragic destiny of Joe Christmas.

Key Words: Light in August; trauma theory; Joe Christmas; tragedy

Contents

1 Introduction 4

1.1 William Faulkner and Light in August 4

1.2 Trauma Theory 5

1.3 Thesis Statement 6

2 Tragic Destiny of Joe Christmas 8

2.1 Dissociation: Loss of Identity 8

2.2 Violence: The Murder Behavior 9

2.3 Isolation: Depravity of Sex 10

3 Trauma Causing the Tragic Destiny 12

3.1 The Persecution of Racism 12

3.2 The Deficiency of Personality 13

3.3 The Neurotic Desire to Womanhood 14

4 Recoveryof Trauma 16

4.1 The Self-Redemption 16

4.2 The Community Recovery 17

5 Conclusion 19

References 20

Acknowledgements 21

The Tragical Destiny of Joe Christmas：Interpretation of Light in August from the Perspective of Trauma Theory

1 Introduction

This chapter firstly gives an introduction to the author and the novel; then it briefly explains the trauma theory; and has a statement of the thesis.

• 1. William Faulkner and Light in August

William Cuthbert Faulkner is an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate who lived in Oxford, Mississippi. He made an incomparable and artistic contribution to contemporary American literature, including modernists, realists, and romanticist at that time. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories setting in the imaginary kingdom which based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, the place he grows up.

As one of the most outstanding writers in American southern literature, Faulkner was not famous until becoming the winner of 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, although his work was published as early as 1919. After that, his work A Fable (1954) and The Rivers (1962) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His novel The Sound and the Fury was ranked by the Modern Library as the sixth of the 100 best English novels in the 20th century in 1998; moreover, his work As I Lay Dying (1930) and Light in August (1932) Absalom, Absalom! (1936) appear on the same lists.

His family background, which is notable, traditional and proud, has a great influence on his writing. His legendary great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner, who was the archetype of Gail Hightower’s grandfather in the novel, profoundly affected William Faulkner by his glorious history and literary tradition. William Faulkner travels around the world a lot, and eventually returns to his hometown, where he obtains his material and inspiration.

Light in August, the most significant but controversial work of William Faulkner, pictures a fictional county basing on writer's home and tells a story of several characters with mental trauma and explores themes of race, sex, class, trauma and religion in the American South. The main plot develops through two parallel-contrast threads, from the main content of the novel, Joe Christmas, who was escapable with tragic impact from his miserable parentage and committed a crime and got arrested finally to the integral framework of the novel, Lena Grove, who calmly accepts the dilemma of life as an unmarried pregnant women and pursuit her love. And there remain other figures giving full play to the narration and comment function, like the priest Hightower and the carpenter Byron Bunch, who move through their lives, affecting others, enduring hardships, overcoming obstacles, and sometimes succumbing to the hardships they faced. In the end, a series of chance ties each of them to the others.

1.2 Trauma Theory

The term “trauma” refers to the sudden intrusion of new and unexpected event into someone’s psyche, which usually due to a sudden confrontation with violence or death. This traumatic event leaves the survivor emotional and intellectual influence, in turn causing a psychic separation in identity and consciousness, which often makes the survivor confused, frightened, and disturbed.

Trauma theory is that after individuals and groups have experienced some terrible events and the trace of group consciousness changed their future, the trauma occurs. Trauma theory represents a fundamental shift in thinking from the idea that those who have experienced psychological trauma are either “sick” or deficient in moral character to the reframe that they are “injured” and in need of healing.

Traumatized research is deeply influenced by Freud's psychoanalysis. It is prevailing in the contemporary public political discourse and the field of humanistic criticism and historical and cultural cognition in the west countries, which is straddling the various fields of humanities and social sciences. The development of trauma theory can be divided into four stages: Freud's theory of psychological trauma, the theory of post Freud psychological trauma, the theory of race/ sex trauma and the theory of trauma culture.

Generally, trauma theory examines the ways in which traumatic occurrences are processed by and through literary texts. Trauma theory attempts to understand the different ways by which traumatic occurrences are demonstrated, processed, exposed, and repressed throughout a variety of literary and historical texts.

Trauma theorists are interested not only in how various writers might attempt to negotiate and resolve their own personal traumas through their writings, but also the ways in which fictional characters attempt to do so, as well as the ways in which literary texts serve to record and pronounce cultural traumas.

Trauma theorists have also shown a particular interest in acts of “testimony” in literary and historical texts. Testimony refers to the attempt by a survivor of a traumatic event to attempt to place him or herself on record, to give voice and meaning to the traumatic event which he or she struggles to reconcile him or herself to.

Trauma theory can lead us to a more profound understand the setting of the story and the design of the plot and even the purpose of the writing by helping us tracing back to the history and understand the situation better. In a word, under the guidance of trauma theory, the research of the figure will be more reasonable, reliable and comprehensive.

1.3 Thesis Statement

In recent years, the critics all over the world explored the work a lot. Generally speaking, the critics mainly focus on the themes, the characters and characterizations, the narrative skills and so on. The relative theories are the psychoanalysis of Freud, the Carnival Theory Bakhtin, the Eco-feminism, the archetypal criticism, the structuralism etc. In the countries across the Atlantic, comparatively speaking, the thematic program on Light in August has been carried out a lot. They mainly focus on racism phenomenon and religion issue. The themes of religion include three aspects—religious view, religious theme and religious archetype. As for the racial concern, the critics explore the racial identity and the racial ideas of Joe Christmas. And the third choice of academic study is the plot structure. In China, the research is far behind the western countries. The research on Light in August took shaped until the end of the 20th century. The translator Lan Renzhe appreciate the work from various aspects, such as the process of creation, the meaning of the title, the setting of characters, language style, and plot structure after the version of Light in August he translates polishing. Regarded as the first comprehensive and systematic study of Faulkner at home, professor Xiao Minghan’s Studies on William Faulkner which published in 1999 also provides various ideas to explore the novel. Generally, the academic researchers at home mainly cover these aspects.

This paper mainly focuses on the analysis of the tragic destiny of the hero, Joe Christmas from the perspective of trauma theory to have a deep understanding of the novel. The novel has not been analyzed so much from the perspective of trauma theory. This thesis strives to study the novel with that. Nowadays, trauma has become a hot issue in the literary criticism as a noteworthy life experience and emphatic human needs, which can be known from the time of current papers that almost all of them publish after 2014. As for the hero of the novel, Joe Christmas, with typical traumatic symptoms, has been the target of many similar interpretations, like why his life ends tragically or his racial identity. Few studies analyze the figure from a professional psychology angle or relate the miserable experience with his cognition and mental problem with his abnormal behaviors. Therefore, it’s still worthwhile to explore the character and the work from the perspective of trauma theory.