Master thesis | Educatie in de Taal en cultuurwetenschappen: Engels (120 EC) (MA)
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This thesis explores how contemporary female American authors Amber Smith and Kate Elizabeth Russell employ narrative structures to portray the complexities of individual trauma within The Way I...Show moreThis thesis explores how contemporary female American authors Amber Smith and Kate Elizabeth Russell employ narrative structures to portray the complexities of individual trauma within The Way I Used to Be (2015) and My Dark Vanessa (2023) respectively. It does so by drawing on Joshua Pederson's new model of trauma theory, which calls for a shift in the ways that critics engage with representations of trauma. Pederson's framework actively challenges the traditional beliefs of the first wave of trauma theorists, who mainly believe that trauma can only be represented through three established tropes: (1) absence/silence, (2) indirection, and (3) repetition and return. By embracing Pederson's call for a revaluation of traditional approaches to trauma representation in literature, this thesis demonstrates how both novels challenge conventional methods by directly representing trauma through detailed, as well as explicit language.Show less
Master thesis | Educatie in de Taal en cultuurwetenschappen: Engels (120 EC) (MA)
open access
This paper examines representations of trauma in Young Adult literature, mainly the so-called “problem novel”. These types of novels are becoming increasingly popular among youngsters. Though...Show moreThis paper examines representations of trauma in Young Adult literature, mainly the so-called “problem novel”. These types of novels are becoming increasingly popular among youngsters. Though teenagers enjoy them, parents frequently express their concerns about the age-appropriateness of the content and subject matter. By analysing the novels The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, and A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, this study illustrates that these novels try to resemble trauma by means of stylistic features. These features include absence, repetition, indirection, and belatedness. The authors not only chose to incorporate these into their narratives, but also in their choice of lay-out, which allows for an increased immersion and engagement of the reader with the text.Show less
Reading Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings through the literary criticism trauma theory. Investigates the impact of war trauma on the presence of heroism, evil and post-war developments.
This thesis discusses two novels that use the dystopian genre to critically reflect on the political and social response to 9/11: Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge (2013) and Cormac McCarthy’s The...Show moreThis thesis discusses two novels that use the dystopian genre to critically reflect on the political and social response to 9/11: Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge (2013) and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). These novels depict a United States that has been, or is going to be, devastated by a catastrophe that is seemingly, or in Pynchon’s case explicitly, inspired by 9/11 and the political and social response to it. This thesis examines how and with what effect these novels use dystopian themes and imagery to respond to the way American society is changed socially and politically because of political efforts to unify it and security measures that were taken in response to 9/11, and critically reflect on the political and social consequences of the attacks.Show less
Trauma resists integration into the memory and is therefore difficult to communicate. In trauma literature, authors represent this difficulty to communicate trauma with the help of several...Show moreTrauma resists integration into the memory and is therefore difficult to communicate. In trauma literature, authors represent this difficulty to communicate trauma with the help of several stylistic devices, such as run-on sentences, unclear references, and deviant punctuation. These stylistic devices allow the readers to experience the trauma as if it was happening to them. Since the communication of trauma is already problematic in itself, the interlingual translation of trauma literature is even more challenging. Translation universals suggest that deviant stylistic choices in the source text (ST), i.e. the stylistic devices used to portray trauma in trauma literature, are often normalized in the target text (TT). In this thesis, I examined how interlingual translation affects trauma narratives and whether the stylistic choices associated with trauma are retained in translation. I answered these questions with the help of a case study on "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close." In order to examine the different stylistic devices used to portray trauma, and in order to find out what happens to them in translation, I conducted a comparative reading of the chapter “WHY I'M NOT WHERE YOU ARE 9/11/03” and its translation “WAAROM IK NIET BEN WAAR JIJ BENT 11-9-03.” I categorized my findings with the help of translation universals, during which I found evidence of a missing universal. Furthermore, I found that the translation choice with the biggest consequences is the splitting up of run-on sentences. By taking a closer look at some of the longest run-on sentences in the chapter and perhaps even the book, namely the run-on sentences consisting of more than a hundred words, I discovered that more than half of these sentences were split up. As a result, the intended effect of the run-on sentences on the reader is also not transferred, and therefore elements of trauma are lost in translation.Show less
The aim of this thesis is to uncover the performative instead of the descriptive nature of trauma in contemporary American texts: Wild and Into the Wild. It is widely accepted that larger traumas...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to uncover the performative instead of the descriptive nature of trauma in contemporary American texts: Wild and Into the Wild. It is widely accepted that larger traumas need a narrative to be worked through, yet these seemingly non-typical examples show that narratives need a certain level of trauma as well. In chapter one the contradictions within trauma narratives will be analyzed by outlining the existing research. Chapter two places Wild amongst these theories and analyses Strayed as a learned, critical trauma author and her novel as autobiographical and calling upon the traditions of trauma. Chapter three both compares Wild and Into the Wild, one being autobiographical and the other describing someone else’s trauma. The positions chosen by the authors provide them with the opportunity to both link the stories to larger societal wounds and it gives the author as well as the audience the chance to work through their own traumas.Show less
