英语毕业论文：《苏菲的选择》中苏菲的心理创伤研究.doc

石河子大学毕业论文 题目： 苏菲的选择中苏菲的心理创伤研究 On Sophies Psychological Trauma in Sophies Choice 院 （系）： 外国语学院 专 业： 英 语 班 级： 20092 学 号： 2009051471 姓 名： 指导教师： 完成日期： 2013年6月9日 AbstractSophies choice is one of the greatest novels written by William Styron, a famous American novelist in the 20th century. The paper presents an interpretation of the the novel from the perspective of Psychological Trauma, from the scenes of Auschwitz Concentration Camp and postwar American life, combining with the feminism to focus on the influence of the war and Patriarchal cage on female (taking the heroine Sophie as an example).The paper analyzes the influence of Psychological Trauma on Sophie by introducing the Psychological Trauma Theory and the cause of Sophies Psychological Trauma - Auschwitz Concentration Camp and Patriarchal cage. Through research, this paper not only offers convenience to other researchers, but also has certain social and realistic significance in helping people deal with traumas in the past and present, thus avoiding such tragedy happening again. Key words: Sophies choice；Psychological Trauma；Auschwitz Concentration Camp摘 要 威廉斯泰龙是20世纪美国著名的小说家，苏菲的选择是其成名作之一。本文主要从心理创伤角度出发，以奥斯维辛集中营及战后的美国生活为背景，再结合女权主义来探讨战争及男权囚笼对女性（以主人公苏菲为例）的影响。本文通过介绍心理创伤理论，结合苏菲的心理创伤来源-奥斯维辛集中营及男权囚笼，分析心理创伤对苏菲的影响。通过研究，本文不仅为之后的研究者提供一定的帮助；同时也有一定的社会现实意义：有助于人们更好地调节过去和现在的心理创伤，避免悲剧的再次发生。 关键词：苏菲的选择；心理创伤；奥斯维辛集中营ContentsI. Introduction1A. An Introduction of William Styron1B. Theory of Psychological Trauma1C. Story of Sophies Choice2II. Literature Review3A. Overseas study on the novel3B. Domestic study on the novel4C. Personal Review4III. Analysis of Sophies Choice51.Auschwitz Concentration Camp52.Patriarchal cage6a. Sophies Father6b. Nathan73. Guilt7B. The Female Consciousness reflected in Sophies Choice8C. Sophies Failure in Recovery from Trauma81. Attempting to Cure Trauma9a. Telling Traumatic Stories9b. Reconnecting with Others10c. Eros102. Sophies Death11IV. Conclusion11Works Cited142013年毕业论文 On Sophies Psychological Trauma in Sophies ChoiceI. IntroductionA. An Introduction of William Styron William Styron, a famous contemporary American writer, Pulitzer Prize winner, is recognized as one of the most successful and creative American novelist after World War II. Although he is seen as the direct successor of Faulkner novel, he is not limited to this tradition, and often keeps a watchful eye on the important events at home and abroad, the survival condition of the modern and even the fate and future of the whole human race. The death of William Styrons mother in his sophomore year in high school in 1939 left unhealed wound of guilt and lasting influence on his later life. Styron served in the U.S. Marine Corps before graduating from Duke University, Durham, N.C., in 1947. During the 1950s he was part of the community of American expatriates in Paris. In 1953 he became an advisory editor to the Paris Review. In his whole life, Styron has written five excellent novels. His first novel, Lie down in Darkness, was published in 1951, which brought him an overnight success. In 1968, he won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel The Confessions of Nat Turner. Sophies Choice was published by Random House in 1979, and made him win the American Book Award in 1980. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness published in 1985 was acclaimed as a best-seller. The creative career of William Styron can be divided into three stages: in the first phase of the creation, his works explore the special problems of the Southern Society, for example, Lie Down in Darkness describes the tragedy of a white middle-class family in the American South; the second stage, he shifts his creative perspective away from the US Southern Society towards the world contemporary society, such as Confessions of Nat Turner, published at the height of the American civil rights movement, raising many complex issues of discussing the literary and historical authenticity; in the third phase, though he is deeply troubled by depression, he never gives up writing, and continues his deep thinking of the destiny of mankind, like This Quiet Dust, Darkness Visible and so on.B. Theory of Psychological Trauma Trauma originally refers to an injury inflicted on a body, and later trauma is understood as a wound inflicted upon the mind. From the end of the 19th century, many people have started to study trauma scientifically. Trauma theory appeared in America in the early 1990s. Since then, there has emerged a lot of trauma theorists and theoretical books such as Cathy Caruths Trauma: Exploration in Memory (1995) and Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, History (1996), Judith Hermans Trauma and Recovery (1997), Dominick LaCapras Writing History, Writing Trauma (2001) and History in Transit: Experience, Identity, Critical Theory (2004), Jeffrey C. Alexandars CulturaTrauma and Collective Identity (2004), etc. With further study, trauma has been endowed with psychological, historical and cultural implications.Psychological Trauma in psychiatry traumatic event is defined as “beyond the experience of ordinary people”. Psychological Trauma refers to the aftermath of the experience of life on a radical change or impact which produces the lingering haze in the psychological level. When it becomes serious, it may lead to “post-traumatic stress disorder”. Trauma often can let people have a sense of helplessness and paralysis. The occurrence of trauma is sudden and overwhelming. Mention of psychological trauma, we will think of wars, floods, earthquakes, fire and air crashes, etc. As well as in our daily life, long-term experience of neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse or violence will facilitate the formation of psychological trauma. Psychological trauma may accompany physical trauma or exist independently of it. The difference between them is that psychological trauma has no direct and fatal influence, but psychological trauma can lead to serious long-term negative consequences than physical trauma, which may affect the physiology gradually, and even one will suffer from the physiological maladies. Besides, physical trauma is one of the causes of the psychological trauma, namely, the painful experience still remains in the heart after the physiological wound is healed. C. Story of Sophies Choice In Sophies Choice, Styron intends Sophie as the fictional character with firsthand experience of the Nazi Holocaust. The novels heroine, Sophie, is a carrier of many suffering women, her father and her husband all die in a Nazi army rounded up; her lover in Warsaw, as a member of the resistance organization helping Jews is assassinated. She is arrested and bought into Auschwitz for buying her sick mother a piece of meat. In the concentration camp, she has been the dual physical and spiritual devastation; her children all die in Auschwitz. After she comes to the United States, she encounters her lover, Nathan, who once gives her hope of survival, but eventually leaves her the deepest hurt. At last Sophie chooses to die with him together. Sophies life is a tragedy. On the one hand, the war brought her disaster and suffering, such as broken families, lost loved ones, which made her memories permanently to be marked by painful stigma; On the other hand, she was always trapped in the patriarchal cage: the absolute obedience to her father, trying to lure Nazis using her body to survive, and dependence on Nathan for not thinking for herself; all her life she was living in the loss of self-control and under the domination of men. II. Literature ReviewA. Overseas study on the novel The researchers focus gradually shifts from the study of the novels contents, themes, thoughts to the novels narrative structure, the historic and the role of music in the novel etc. The research papers on the theme of novel, for example, John Lang “Gods Averted Face:Styrons Sophies Choice” explores the theme of religion, faith and salvation; Carolyn A.Durhams“William StyronsSophies Choice: The Structure of Oppression” has a better interpretation to the depressed emotional tone and the guilt made by Sophies choice. Research on novels structure, for instance, Richard G. Laws“The Reach of Fiction: Narrative Technique in Styrons Sophies Choice” concentrates on the perspective conversion issues, which scholars think make the readers experience the unimaginative, cruel and painful historical scenes. In 1982, the novel Sophies Choice was filmed under the same name by Meryl Streep who played the heroine Sophie won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In the 21st century, the research of scholars is in the process of the further diversification, such as Bertram Wyatt-Browns “William StyronsSophies Choice: Poland, the South, and the Tragedy of Suicide”, Lisa Carstenss “Sexual Politics and Confessional Testimony in Sophies Choice” and so on. The voices of doubt are appeared frequently at the beginning of the publication of novel. Like Thaddeus C. Radzialowskis “The Final Solution for Southern Guilt”, scholars consider that Styron alludes to the ethnic conflicts in the Southern United States by writing the contradictions between the Polish and the Jewish nation, but apparently the ethnic conflicts in the Southern United States are not as cruel and dehumanizing as those of in Poland. Thus, the crime of the American South can be forgiven in a way. The papers author holds that Styrons knowledge of the culture and history of Poland is not deep enough. Seemingly Styron writes the story of the Polish, Auschwitz, and New York etc., actually he aims to excuse for the guilt of the American South. B. Domestic study on the novel In China, the earliest research paper on William Styron is Wang Xiaoyings “Retention of Human Nature-Styrons Thought and the Written”(written in 1984). The research is from the point of view of good and evil, and the author thinks that Styron starts to seek the reason that human descends into non-human, and the ultimate reason is the evil of human nature. Since the 90s, Styron has been a concern of domestic critics, the study on him is growing gradually and the directions of research have shown mixed results. To sum up, scholars do the research mainly from the following aspects of the novel. First, the theme of the novel, for instance, Chen Weiweis “The Disillusion of Redemption and Self-Rescue-William Styrons Sophies Choice”, focuses on the theme of redemption, Chen Weiwei thinks that Styron shows the disillusion of redemption and self-rescue through the examination of peoples huge trauma in World War II. Second, the narrative techniques, for example, “On the Narrative Strategies of Sophies Choice” of Zeng Chuanfang puts forward that Styron not only employs the narrative as rhetoric and critical meta-narrative, but also blends and corroborates them with each other. This paper is from a new perspective to interpret the novels narrative strategies. Besides the two main research, some papers are from the perspective of the female image to explore the tragic fate of women in Styrons novel, such as Fan Gexins “Women, the Protagonist of the Tragedy of Life-Contemporary American Writer on the Female” discussing the image of Sophie. Some papers are from the perspective of New Historicism. Yang Youyus “William Styrons New Historicism Consciousness in Sophies Choice” probes into the New Historicist Consciousness embodied in the novel.C. Personal Review Sophies Choice is so outstanding in the novels connected with history, not only because it reveals peoples suffering during and after the war, but also analyses the influence of Patriarchal cage in the life of women. On the one hand, World War II, the Nazis, Auschwitz as a real history, left people with no way to measure the hurt and the puzzle. Today, Auschwitz has become a symbol of history, and reminds the world that the Nazis had harsh existence. After the end of the war, the survivors eventually could not tolerate all kinds of psychological pressure and chose to commit suicide. .By taking Sophies trauma and tragedy as a mirror, William Styron implies the universality of the Nazi evil which can cause destructive traumatic effects individually and collectively, and shows his humanistic concern that people should confront with and wipe out evil. On the other hand, although female are indispensable to the society, they are not on equal terms with male but an accessory for male and trapped in the patriarchal cage. Taking Sophie for example, Sophies life is under the control and domination of the men: life in Poland before World War II, Sophie is absolute obedience to her father; life in concentration camp during World War II, Sophie is trying to lure Nazis using her body to survive; life in Brooklyn after World War II, Sophie is dependent on her savior Nathan. Her only female consciousness is exhausted because of the despair of life, she ultimately chooses death. As a victim of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and the patriarchy, maybe death is a kind of relief to her. The paper aims at letting people comprehend the complexity of human nature, understand human beings feelings of suffering and thus people will pay more attention to the life in the future. Moreover, it advocates that the female should break free from the shackles of patriarchal cage; they should not be the accessory of male.III. Analysis of Sophies ChoiceA. Sophies psychological trauma Traumatic events can not only cause a person to suffer for traumatic symptoms but also cause physical and psychological damages and overwhelm the ability to integrate self and maintain relationships with others. 1.Auschwitz Concentration Camp Auschwitz is Nazi Germanys largest concentration camp and extermination camp. Located near the industrial town of Owicim in southern Poland (in a portion of the country that was annexed by Germany at the beginning of World War II), Auschwitz was actually three camps in one: a prison camp, an extermination camp, and a slave-labour camp. As the most lethal of the Nazi extermination camps, Auschwitz has become the emblematic site of the “final solution,” a virtual synonym for the Holocaust.As a prisoner in Auschwitz, Sophie not only suffers from the persecution both in mind and body, becoming a victim, but also she has become a helper who works for German army and indirectly involves in the persecution of the Jewish race action. All in all, she is spiritually condemned by herself as an accomplice. Just as she says,“there was no rule. No. But such a terrible place was this Auschwitz, Stingo, terrible beyond all belief, that you really could not say that this person should have done a certain thing in a fine or noble fashion, as in the other world. If he or she done a noble thing, then you could admire them like any place else, but the Nazis were murderers and when they were not murdering they turned people into sick animals, so if what the people done was not so noble, or even was like animals, then you have to understand it, hating it maybe but pitying it at the same time, because you knew how easy it was for you to act like an animal too.” （p334） 2.Patriarchal cage Living in a patriarchal society, women characters loss of discourse power is caused mainly by their social status and economic status. The protagonist Sophie always relies on the male characters for living. In Poland, she depends on her father, and after escaping concentration camp, she always relies on Nathan. She has lost her own identity and searches for the meaning of life in others. Under oppression of male characters, she becomes too obedient and coward to rebel. a. Sophies Father In her relationship with her father, she couldnt get her fathers love and care; she could only recall the tender feeling from the action of dribs and drabs in childhood. In addition to this, what left by his father is nothing but fear, confusion and hatred:“I hate him with a kind of terrible wonder at the hatred which entered into me. It was incredible, the surprise of this hatred, only with awful pain like a butcher knife in my heart.”（p296）In the eyes of Sophie, her father is “a household tyrant”. He forces his young daughter to learn German, typing and shorthand, letting her become secretary for collecting information, which is actually to give service to his political beliefs. He never asks her daughter whether she is willing to do or not, and what he wants is that she must unconditionally obey. As long as she has some feelings that are somehow correlated to her father, unconditional obedience, fear and pain are only hers. Even she herself regards her as “masochism”. Ultimately, she is not only shocked with fear by her fathiers political views, but sees clearly her fathers attitude towards her. She awakens; therefore she feels disappointed and painful.b. Nathan Nathan gives Sophie a second life and she regards him as her savior and right person and casts on him all her hopes and loves. Unfortunately, Nathan is a madman, he sometimes is normal but sometimes not. When he is normal, he is very friendly to Sophie and Stingo, a faultless lover of Sophie, a good friend of Stingo; however, when he is abnormal, he curses Sophie with vicious words, doubts her faithfulness, interrogates why she can survive in Auschwitz, and even strikes her violently.In her view, the maltreatment of Nathan does not constitute her pa