Abstract
Traumatic memory exhibits three fundamental features, namely, the individualistic nature, personal experience, and emotional nature, among which personal experience is the most important because the subject of traumatic memory has a pre-privilege of emotion and ethics. The ultimate goal of the subject with traumatic memory is to get through the negative effects of trauma on the subject and make him cope with the real life. Traumatic memory can be studied from the perspective of its origin in the reality and its cultural representation. Trauma in the form of individual suffering could become collective crisis only when it is studied in the context of the collective and universal world, and the theme of trauma can then become from literary theme to the issue of philosophy, ethics and culture. The trauma of body, spirit and society can then become cultural trauma. Nowadays, media have turned personal memory into the public discourse and at the same time turned traumatic memory into everyday life. The paper suggests three attitudes, namely, paying sympathy and respect for sufferings, keeping a vigilant eye on the writing of memory, and differentiating objective truth from subjective truth and the constructive context of correct memory from that of wrong memory.
First Page
110
Last Page
119
Recommended Citation
Zhao, Jingrong. 2015. "Traumatic Memory: Psychic Reality and Cultural Representation." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 35, (2): pp.110-119. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol35/iss2/25
