Representation of Trauma in The Night War Series

master's thesis

• Author: Iva Kurtović
• Mentor: Vanja Polić Jurković (mentor)
• Committee member: Iva Polak (predsjednik povjerenstva)
• Committee member: Ivana Bašić (član povjerenstva)
• Granter: University of Zagreb; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; (Department of English language and literature); Zagreb
• Defense date and country: 2022-09-05, Croatia
• Scientific / art field, discipline and subdiscipline: HUMANISTIC SCIENCES; Philology; Anglistics

Abstract

The thesis provides an analysis of the fanfiction series The Night War through the lens of trauma studies. The series is based on the premise that during World War Two, Bucky Barnes (a secondary character from Marvel’s Captain America comics and films) kept a journal which was posthumously published to great acclaim, thus affording the character a level of cultural importance which far surpasses that depicted in the source material. Focusing primarily on The Night War’s main instalment – the aforementioned fictional diary of Bucky Barnes – the thesis contextualizes this work within fanfiction writing culture as well as its source material, Marvel’s Captain America films.
In acknowledgement of her importance to the field, the analysis begins by providing a reading in line with Cathy Caruth’s seminal work on trauma. This kind of reading is found to cohere particularly well with The Night War’s speculative fiction elements, which are inherent to the fanfiction’s source material. However, this approach is ultimately reconsidered and revised so as to include the work of some of Caruth’s detractors. Namely, a new generation of scholars such as Alan Gibbs, Joshua Pederson, Michelle Balaev and Nigel Hunt offer critiques of – and alternatives to – Caruth’s model of trauma. Their perspectives prove to be instrumental in shaping a reading that is focused on a socially situated and gradual development of war trauma which destabilizes the protagonist’s self-image and causes him severe emotional distress. Instead of a trauma model built around a single unassimilated traumatic break in the character’s consciousness and memories, The Night War series calls for an analysis which takes into account the importance of survivor guilt, perpetrator trauma and moral injury as key factors of a combatant’s experience of trauma.

• Keywords: trauma studies; World War Two; fanfiction; Captain America; war fiction
• Language: english
• URN:NBN: urn:nbn:hr:131:810276
• Study programme: Title: English Language and Literature (double major); specializations in: Linguistics, Literature and Culture, Translation, TEFL; Course: Literature and Culture; Study programme type: university; Study level: graduate; Academic / professional title: magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti (magistar/magistra engleskog jezika i književnosti)
• Type of resource: Text
• File origin: Born digital
• Access conditions: Open access
• Created on: 2022-09-08 15:23:33