《天秤星座》的创伤解读.pdf

Abstract

As one of the most prominent postmodern novelists in contemporary America，
Don Delillo's ninth novel Libra had been given attention by so many critics once it
came out and it earned the Aer Lingus/ Irish Times International Fiction Prize for him.
The thesis combines the trauma theory with narrative theory and has a close
reading of Libra. Based on the event of the assassination of JFK and take the trauma
theory as the theoretical frame, the thesis mainly deals with first, the traumatizer of
the traumatic event, Oswald's individual trauma, that is, the reason why he took part
in the assassination; second, the collective trauma that the traumatic event results to
the America. By means of writing the novel Libra, Delillo attempts to help the
Americans work through the trauma. It is hoped that the present study could arrive a
new interpretation of Libra.
This dissertation contains five parts:
The first chapter introduces the author Don Delillo and his major achievements
and the literature review on Libra. The second chapter gives an overview of trauma
theory and the integration of trauma and fiction. The third chapter analyses the
traumatizer---Oswald's individual trauma. It contains two parts. The first is Oswald's
traumatic experience and the reasons why he is traumatized. As a matter of fact,
Oswald has gone through trauma all the time. It is his traumatic experience that results
in his frenzy action to kill the President. There are a lot of reasons which result in
Oswald's traumatic experience such as the abnormal upbring, the influence of the
leftism and some other social reasons. The second is that with the use of narrative
technique repetition, Oswald's trauma is presented more vividly. The fourth chapter
deals with the collective trauma caused by the Kennedy assassination. It analyses the
American nation's traumatic experience of and reaction to the traumatic event. With
the narrative