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McCabe, Kara F.

English

2013

M.A.

Traumatic events such as war, natural disasters, acts ofterrorism, and hate crimes permeate twenty-first century popular culture and political discussions. Despite advances in technology, medicine, and psychology, societies remain ill-equipped to predict and handle the effects oftrauma. Moreover, echoes of major historical traumas still present unresolved questions about humanity. Specifically, as the number of living Holocaust survivors dwindles, this fundamental traumatic event lingers in contemporary Western consciousness. Consequently, scholars of literature and psychoanalysis-among other disciplines-have revisited foundational theories in order to a) develop a working definition oftrauma, and b) understand the way in which a psyche manages traumatic events and memories.
Accordingly, this thesis illuminates and puts into dialogue the trauma theories of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Cathy Caruth, Paul Eisenstein, and several others, ultimately demonstrating that an understanding of the mind's conscious and unconscious processes is crucial to grasping trauma. To illustrate trauma, repression, acting out, and working through, this project examines several artistic depictions ofHolocaust survivors, including Anita Diamant's historical novel Day After Night, Alan Pakula's film Sophie's Choice, and Ida Fink's short story collection, A Scrap of Time. After discussing the problematic, disruptive nature of trauma in an individual life, the paper will then examine the collective impact of a catastrophic event and reveal the subjective nature of history, thereby awakening the reader to the inevitably of trauma and the necessity of embracing it as a reality of human existence.