2.5 Trauma and the Unrepresentable
( Due: Sun, 16 Jan | Status: Not Completed )
1. Listen to H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Unnameable” as read by MorganScorpion on The Internet Archive:
The Internet Archive is a fantastic source for public domain and Creative Commons (CC) audio, video, texts and concert recordings. It’s also the home of the Wayback Machine, an archive of the past contents of web pages dating back to 1996. If you don’t have it bookmarked already, do so immediately.
2. Trauma theory is part of present-day clinical practice. It has to do with how people process incredibly stressful events. The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) suffered by many soldiers returning from war is described by trauma theory. Trauma often leads to repetition and avoidance behaviors, and especially an inability to remember, process, or feel connected to the moment of trauma (“dissociation”). Trauma theory offers another way to look at how your characters deal with stress and its aftermath, especially if you want their reactions to be realistic. Read the following:
ISSTD Trauma FAQ:
ISSTD Dissociation FAQ
3. Consider:
a. One of the reasons that action heroes often feel “flat” is that they go through great trauma, stress, and loss without so much as a scratch on their psyche. How would you go about writing a scene in which your protagonist deals with the aftermath of personal trauma?
b. In “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” Penny’s death was a moment of great trauma for the title character, and a real shock to the audience. How are these two traumas (the protagonist’s and the audience’s) represented in the video?
c. Lovecraft’s “The Unnameable” predates the term “trauma theory,” but was written after WWI, where the term “shell shock” entered the vocabulary. How do the narrator and his friend react to their trauma in the story? Why is it “unnameable”?
d. In theory, people can recover from psychological trauma, but not all do. The next lesson covers the range of clinically recognized personality disorders, which can be treated but not cured. Sometimes trauma leads to the development of a personality disorder. How can you use trauma, old and new, to develop your characters?
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