1. {
EWRT 1C Class 22
back
short
watch
In each of these puzzles, a list of words is given. To solve the
puzzle, think of a single word that goes with each to form a
compound word (or word pair that functions as a compound
word). For example, if the given words are volley, field, and
bearing, then the answer would be ball, because the word ball can
be added to each of the other words to form volleyball, ball field,
and ball bearing.
blue
cake
cottage
stool
powder
ball
2. AGENDA
Introduction to Trauma Theory
Discussion:
Trauma Theory
Bloom
Balaev
Discussion: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank
Redemption
3. Trauma Theory: the last
100 years.
Trauma has attracted the
attention of many disciplines.
The reason is easy to
understand for those of us
today, who have the historical
knowledge of violence of the
twentieth century and the
experience of the ominous
start of twenty-first century.
4. A Century of
Traumas
The new millennium awakened to bloodshed
of an unprecedented scale on 9/11; two
subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
and the enormous loss of life and property
in Libya and Syria threw the world into
turmoil.
Shoshana Felman, Emory University
Professor specializing in 19th and 20th
literature and psychoanalysis, trauma and
testimony, literature and philosophy, law
and literature, calls the legacy of violence
we inherited from the twentieth century “a
century of traumas.”
This condition of the world has posed new
existential and epistemological questions
to human civilization, questions that
trauma theory is trying to make sense of
and answer
Felman, Shoshana. The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the
Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
5. Freudian Beginnings
Freudian Dreams
Freud referred to dreams as“the
royal road to a knowledge of the
unconscious activities of the
mind.” Dreaming, which,
according to Freud’s first theories,
happened distortedly or
symbolically, gives an outlet to the
dark desires repressed in the
unconscious or Id, so that sleep is
not disturbed by primitive sexual
and aggressive impulses (Freud’s
Interpretation of Dreams).
6. Traumatic dreams vs. Freudian dreams
The World War I veterans
plagued with PTSD puzzled
Freud because the literal
images they encountered in
dreams could not be explained
in terms of the dream theory he
devised earlier in The
Interpretation of Dreams.
.
7. The term trauma theory
and PTSD:
What Freud once called
“traumatic neurosis,” the
American Psychiatric
Association in 1980 officially
acknowledged and termed as
“Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder” (PTSD), a concept
significant to trauma theory.
The term “trauma theory” first
appears in Cathy Caruth’s
Unclaimed Experience (1996).
The theory stems from her
interpretation and elaboration
of Freud’s reflections on
traumatic experiences in Beyond
the Pleasure Principle and Moses
and Monotheism.
8. Cathy Caruth defines PTSD as “a
response, sometimes delayed, to an
overwhelming event or events, which
takes the form of repeated, intrusive
hallucinations, dreams, thoughts or
behaviors stemming from the event [. .
.] [T]he event is not assimilated or
experienced fully at the time, but only
belatedly [. . .] To be traumatized is
precisely to be possessed by an
image or event.” (Caruth 3-5)
Cathy Caruth is a Cornell
Professor of English and German
Romanticism. She specializes in
trauma theory; psychoanalytic
theory. Unclaimed Experience:
Trauma, Narrative and History;
Empirical Truths and Critical
Fictions: Locke Wordsworth, Kant,
Freud.
From Cathy Caruth (ed.) (1995) 'Trauma
And Experience: Introduction’, Trauma:
Explorations in Memory.” Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
9. {
Why is literature so important in trauma
theory?
Truth for anyone is a very complex
thing. For a writer, what you leave out
says as much as those things you
include. What lies beyond the margin
of the text? ...When we tell a story we
exercise control, but in such a way as
to leave a gap, an opening. It is a
version, but never the final one. And
perhaps we hope that the silences will
be heard by someone else, and the
story can continue, can be retold.
When we write we offer the silence as
much as the story. Words are the part
of silence that can be spoken. …Do
you remember the story of Philomel
who is raped and then has her tongue
ripped out by the rapist so that she
can never tell? I believe in fiction and
the power of stories because that way
we speak in tongues.
Jeanette Winterson,
Why Be Happy When You Could Be
Normal?
Trauma theorists deem
literature important because
of its ability to accommodate
both the comprehensible and
the incomprehensible.
Literary language
simultaneously defies as well
as claims understanding, and
all the pioneer trauma
theorists—beginning with
Freud and including Cathy
Caruth and Shoshana
Felman—turned to literature
for theoretical support.
10. Literature accommodates the known and the
unknown:
`Kurtz got the tribe to follow him,
did he?' I suggested. He fidgeted
a little. `They adored him,' he
said. The tone of these words
was so extraordinary that I
looked at him searchingly. It was
curious to see his mingled
eagerness and reluctance to
speak of Kurtz.
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Literature can contain
knowing and not knowing,
the known and unknown, the
knowable and unknowable
all at once in language, a
medium that itself oscillates
between the expressible and
inexpressible, the possible
and impossible.
Psychoanalysis, in its
extension to trauma theory,
makes use of this strange
nature of literature and its
medium.
12. 1. The Fight-or-Flight
2. Learned Helplessness
3. Loss of “Volume Control”
4. Thinking Under Stress—Action Not Thought
5. Remembering Under Stress
6. Emotions and Trauma—Dissociation
7. Endorphins and Stress—Addiction to Trauma
8. Trauma Reenactment
9. Trauma and the Body
10. Victim to Victimizer
Effects of Trauma
13. 1. How does trauma affect a person’s behavior?
2. How does repeated exposure to trauma effect an individual?
3. What are the key aspects of trauma theory? What are we trying to
identify and study on characters?
4. According to Bloom, how does Creating Sanctuary help us to
understand human behavior and response to trauma?
5. Does the loss of “volume control”, Bloom writes about in her article,
play an effect on the flaws of characters in literature?
6. How does “dissociation” helps us from dying?
7. What role do words play in memory and traumatic events?
8. How does the fight or flight response help us in our understanding of
psychological trauma ?
9. How can trauma theory be compared to psychoanalytic theory?
QHQ: Bloom
14. “Trauma, in my analysis, refers to a person's emotional
response to an overwhelming event that disrupts previous
ideas of an individual's sense of self and the standards by
which one evaluates society. The term "trauma novel"
refers to a work of fiction that conveys profound loss or
intense fear on individual or collective levels. A defining
feature of the trauma novel is the transformation of the self
ignited by an external, often terrifying experience, which
illuminates the process of coming to terms with the
dynamics of memory that inform the new perceptions of
the self and world.”
From Balaev
15. The trauma novel conveys a diversity of extreme emotional
states through an assortment of narrative innovations, such
as landscape imagery, temporal fissures, silence, or narrative
omission--the withholding of graphic, visceral traumatic
detail. Authors employ a nonlinear plot or disruptive
temporal sequences to emphasize mental confusion, chaos,
or contemplation as a response to the experience. The
narrative strategy of silence may create a "gap" in time or
feeling that allows the reader to imagine what might or
could have happened to the protagonist, thereby
broadening the meaning and effects of the experience.
From Balaev
16. 1. According to Balaev, what is trauma exactly, and how does it affect
a person?
2. Why can trauma experienced by a group centuries in the past be
experienced again by an individual if he does not go through the
traumatic experience?
3. How much does a person’s culture or ethnicity influence the
trauma?
4. According to Balaev, how does trauma organize the memory and
meaning of trauma?
5. How is analyzing trauma in literature important from a
societal/cultural perspective?
6. What does the traumatized protagonist offer to the reader?
7. What does Balaev mean when first introducing the separation one’s
self from consciousness in the face of trauma?
QHQ: Balaev
19. Who is the narrator?
How did the first-person narrative
affect the story?
Why does the author choose to tell
the story through Red’s eyes and
not Andy’s?
Is he reliable? Why or why not?
The readers can’t know the truth
because we only hear the story
from Red’s narration of Andy’s
narration and other sources. Yet, in
the story Red swears that Andy is
telling the truth about being an
innocent man. It’s up to the readers
to decide whether Andy is innocent
or not
21. Hope
Red on the other hand did murder but he has a chance to redeem
himself and takes Andy’s advice, “hope is a good thing.”
Red’s description of Andy is that “there was none of that sullen
desperation about him that seems to afflict most lifers after awhile;
you could never smell hopelessness on him.”
Corruption
How does “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” by
Stephen King depict the correctional system through the narrator
Red?
Crime
Red readily admits to the murders he committed and he knows he
deserves to be in prison.
When we first get introduced to Andy we learn that he was charged
for the murder of his wife and her lover. However, we also learn
through Red’s narration that Andy denies ever committing the
murders, and that he was just an unlucky guy.
Themes/Concepts:
22. { {Symbols
Rita Hayworth
What does the poster of Rita Hayworth and the other women
symbolize?
Why does [the Rita Hayworth poster] get a place in the title?
Andy Dufresne
What is Andy Dufresne is symbolic of and what does he
represent to Red and to the rest of the inmates at Shawshank?
Warden Norton
Warden Norton represents the faults of the prison system.
The Bird
What did Sherwood Bolton’s bird, Jake, represent? What did it
symbolize when the Red found it dead after it had been
released?
23. Discuss trauma as it applies to any one character in “Rita Hayworth
and the Shawshank Redemption.” Use textual support to make a case
that the traumatic incident has long term ramifications.
hasn’t corrected his behavior, but instead it
has structured his mind into believing the
world inside the walls of Shawshank is the
only world he belongs in. It isn’t until Andy
Dufresne comes to Shawshank and
eventually escapes that Red frees his
institutionalized mind from the
imprisonment he has been accustomed to.
Red has become accustomed to his life in prison, so much that he wouldn’t
feel comfortably anywhere else, not even outside as a free man. “I couldn’t
get along on the outside. I’m what they call an institutional man now” (79).
The correctional facility he does his prison time in has institutionalized
him, literally and symbolically, to become dependent on that system. His
freedom was completely stripped from him the moment he walked into
Shawshank, and his mind can’t even fathom a life without the walls of
prison. In this sense, the correctional system
24. RED
Red was convicted of a crime he openly admits. He explains this non-contentiously
which may show, through acceptance, a lesser effect of trauma externally. But his lack
of recognition for “rehabilitation” and his non-contentious reaction could in fact be
due to a “learned helplessness.” That is, according to Bloom’s theory of trauma, he is
inadequate to deal with the legal processes for parole release. This has a long term
effect, quite literally, as he gets passed for parole year in and year out. One of Bloom’s
definition of trauma being “an inadequate resource (externally and internally) to cope
with external threat,” we learn as the story goes, the term “rehabilitation” was in
itself inputted by the system purposely to create the traumatic effect for all prisoners.
So the real trauma (learned helplessness) comes from meeting Andy Dufresne. Red
describes himself as a man who knows how to get things. As a man who benefits
from supplying contra band, which is a cause and effect “deconstructive behavior”
according to Bloom, his social group co-depends upon his particular skill. He is also a
skeptic to believe people who deem themselves as innocent. As his social-group is
constructed around felons, he is a representative or the control in this group. So it is
safe to say (in accordance to Bloom) not only is deviation from social-construct the
norm here, an intervention is needed.
25. Well, listen: I knew this guy, Sherwood Bolton, his name was,
and he had this pigeon in his cell. From 1945 until 1953, when
they let him out, he had that pigeon. He wasn't any Birdman
of Alcatraz; he just had this pigeon. Jake, he called him. He set
Jake free a day before he, Sherwood, that is, was to walk, and
Jake flew away just as pretty as you could want. But about a
week after Sherwood Bolton left our happy little family, a
friend of mine called me over to the west corner of the
exercise yard, where Sherwood used to hang out. A bird was
lying there like a very small pile of dirty bed-linen. It looked
starved. My friend said: "Isn't that Jake, Red?" It was. That
pigeon was just as dead as a turd.
Trauma??
26. Warden Norton uses Andy to help cover up his scams and is desperate for
him to stay at Shawshank. When Andy realizes he has evidence which
could prove his innocence and comes to Norton, Norton harshly denies
Andy has any real proof. He sends Andy to solitary and later finally renews
his request for another meeting. […] The warden [later] admits he checked
with the prison in Rhode Island and they did in fact have an inmate named
Elwood Blatch. Instead of following up about the potential evidence that
can exonerate Andy, Norton chooses to threaten him by saying that if Andy
hires a lawyer and investigates himself, Norton will take away the library
Andy worked so hard on building as well as other privileges. Norton says,
“I will make it my personal business to see that it got back to what it was
before you came here. And I will make you life . . . very hard. Very
difficult,” (King, 54). Norton is projecting his fears of getting caught onto
Andy. His guilty feelings are making him incredibly nervous and keeping
Andy around is his way of projecting his inner feelings onto someone else.
Using a psychoanalytic lens, do a character profile
of any one character in “Rita Hayworth and
Shawshank Redemption.”
