Trauma novel refers to a work of fiction that discloses serious loss or intense fear on individuals and groups. The traumatic experience is repetitious, timeless, and unspeakable. Gayl Jones, Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison are only a few authors who have written this type of novel. The traumatic events that occur in the books are rape, miscarriage of justice, and slavery, to name a few. The experienced trauma manifest as fragmented memory, silence, commitment phobia, intimate distance, and feelings of abandonment. In her book, Quiet As It's Kept: Shame, Trauma, and Race in the Novels of Toni Morrison, J. Brooks Bouson argues that the traumatic experience of slavery and "white racist practices" throughout history produced a "collective African-American experience" which appears in fiction and in the fabric of American culture (4) as intergenerational trauma. African American authors are reimaging history told primarily in first and third person limited, and even if the novel has an omniscient point of view, it can change to third person limited. They use point of view to adeptly navigate the effects of trauma on the psyche interweaving closeness and distance to manipulate the emotional, intellectual, and moral responses the author desires. In this essay, I argue that because of intergenerational trauma, African American novels tell a "collective or communal" story that has a profound effect on point of view and narrative or psychic distance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc1703304 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Smith, Sanderia Faye |
| Contributors | Tait, John, Penkov, Miroslav, Armintor, Deborah Needleman |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | iv, 174 pages, Text |
| Rights | Public, Smith, Sanderia Faye, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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