Trauma in “The Road”

I’m not entirely convinced that the ‘Black Hole of Trauma’ chapter relates directly to The Road, in the sense that the situation of the father and son figures of the novel is far more complex than that of the easy groupings of “people who undergo trauma and develop PTSD” and “people who undergo trauma and adapt” outlined by Kolk, McFarlane, and Weisaeth. The father and son certainly demonstrate specific aspects of PTSD cited by the chapter, such as in their recurring dreams and nightmares (where the father often dreams about life pre-disaster and his wife while the son dreams of things so frightening he can’t even talk about them). The boy in particular exhibits the numbing aspect of PTSD, especially when they encounter the stretch of road filled with half-submerged corpses—”So strangely untroubled” (p. 191). The chapter states that “even though vivid elements of the trauma intrude insistentl in the form of… nightmares, many traumatized people have a great deal of difficulty relating precisely what has happened” (p. 10), and this is true of the boy and his repeated non-communication with his father on the topic of his dreams. But, this is, of course, working off the assumption that the boy’s dreams are indeed nightmares of the disaster—which is arguably not the best nor most accurate assumption, when taking into consideration the fact that the father’s dreams are largely of good times past.

However, one of the key arguments of the ‘Black Hole of Trauma’ is that “the memory of the trauma is not integrated and accepted as a part of one’s personal past” (p. 9), that “either it is integrated in memory and stored as an unfortunate event belonging to the past, or the sensations and emotions belonging to the event start leading a life of their own” (p. 8). The idea is that the integration of the trauma into one’s “personal past” memory is acceptance which leads to adaptability and not-PTSD. It would seem ridiculous to try to make the claim that the father and son of The Road have done anything but adapt after the disaster. This fundamental claim of the chapter seems completely disproved—or at least inapplicable—to The Road as a result, regardless of the small symptomatic impressions of PTSD the characters may be displaying. I think this begs the question, “why?”, and I would argue that the chapter is rendered inapplicable because the trauma is still ongoing, even as the novel relates their story to us. The characters cannot be likened to the examples of the chapter (the war and Holocaust veterans) because they have not been removed from the traumatic experience and returned to the norm of things, for the very norm of things is what has been completely uprooted, not a momentary experience of it. While the chapter may present some interesting talking points, the very definition of “trauma” and a “traumatic situation” is so different when attempting to align The Road to ‘The Black Hole of Trauma’ as to render the comparison ineffective.

By nympheline

I think Andy Warhol is possibly the most insightful life-commentator that I know of.

1 comment

  1. I see your general argument — essentially, because their trauma had no “low point” from which they can recover, the man and boy are still in the midst of, and will forever be in the midst of, trauma.

    I wonder, though, if their moments of relative safety (their few days in the bomb shelter, or few days in the plantation house) act as a reprieve from the ongoing disaster, which gives them a false sense of “getting better.” And those moments of safe haven paradoxically make them worse off, more susceptible to the “post” in PTSD.

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