After reading “The Black Hole of Trauma”, I have a couple of thoughts when relating this to “The Road”. The main thing that keeps running through my mind is that I really don’t see very many PTSD symptoms in this book. Sure, the theme of avoidance is prominent in this book, and there certainly are scenes where the boy and his father are clearly trying to bury their feelings or encouraging each other to block out the horror of trauma that they are experiencing, (see “If I shouldnt cry you shouldnt cry either”, p.270). But there really isn’t a sense of panic attacks or voluntary compulsive reepxosure to trauma. There are many scenes where the boy and his father are waking up from their nightmares, but I think that considering the fact that they are living in the last days of mankind, a “nuclear winter” as was mentioned in class, this is to be expected. I think that the father has certainly succumbed to the “numbing” sensation that occurs to victims, because we only see him shedding his façade and breaking down in tears once, when his son is sick and suffering and close to death (At least, I think that’s the only time we see that strong of an emotion out of him, to the best of my memory). However, the boy bursts into tears regularly, just about every five pages or so. He cries whenever the father leaves someone behind on the road, he cries whenever his father hands him the gun for him to shoot, he cries when its time to get up and go again. His constant crying is, I think, a sign that he has not yet embraced the voluntary amnesia or detachment that can strike these victims. The boy is still very much alive emotionally and has not yet put up walls that would distance him from the chaotic world around him. He is raw and unprotected, and I think, on the pages, he’s really the only reminder of the world that we like to believe we are a part of right now.
I think that the reason that this article does not translate as well, in terms of the symptoms and behavior patterns that we are being told to look for in victims of trauma, is because first of all, this is a trauma that we are lucky enough to not have experience with. A trauma of this magnitude has not been seen before in our world, the trauma of not only witnessing the destruction of your self and your loved ones, but also of every element of your surroundings. Not only your city or nation, but every single element of the outside world around you- your planet, the universe and heavens themselves. No one has ever experienced that before, so of course this article could not discuss such a calamity. Also, there’s been no chance for the characters to fully relax. The study of PTSD always takes place when the victim returns to the previous environment and has to learn how to live in their original world and reconcile themselves with their experience. When these characters have “control environment” for them to integrate their experience in, there is no area for these symptoms to manifest. Since we are looking at this article again in the next book, I have a feeling that this article will be a bit more relavant- at least I’m hoping, because I don’t know if I can read another book like “The Road” right away! Talk about a black hole of trauma! The title of that article could have just as easily been the title for this book.
I see what you’re saying here, but I don’t know that I agree with it completely. I think that we do see symptoms of PTSD in the father, from hypervigilance (Kolk, McFarlane&Weisaeth 13) to intrusive memory (Kolk, McFarlane&Weisaeth 19) to an inability to respond flexibly to the world he lives in (Kolk, McFarlane&Weisaeth 16). One does not need to exhibit all of the classical signs of PTSD in order to suffer from it, and I think that a DSM4 checklist in the father’s behaviour would server to make the character less realistic. He would become a symbol of PTSD instead of a man experiencing it.
The father’s hypervigilance shows in his inability to stay in one place for any real amount of time. The two days they spent in the bunker could have been extended with no real increase in danger — some time spent in improving the cover for the shelter and some additional defenses would have allowed them to rest completely, put on some much-needed weight, regroup, and then continue on. Part of this hypervigilance is also in the father’s need to keep moving. We only see the dangers of the world through the fathers’ traumatized lens — one must wonder how many enclaves of good guys like the one at the end that the father and boy missed on their way to the coast simply by virtue of the father’s terror. If the father hadn’t died, they would have kept moving and kept moving and missed the community where they could have stopped.
The Road is riddled with intrusive memories — in class I said that I liked how the father’s memories tended to blend into the present, and that it was sometimes difficult to catch when the narrative moved from memory to present. After reading “The Black Hole of Trauma”, I realized that this blending was a good demonstration of intrusions, complete with vivid sense memory and an inability to regulate when these memories came back.
Finally, the father’s obsession with the map shows that lack of mental flexibility. His plan, long ago, was to get the coast. It’s never discussed why he started that journey, and it’s clear that the boy has been on that journey his whole life, but the journey itself has no real point. Following the map is all he can think of to do — he can’t stop at the bunker, he can’t get off the interstate to look for communities, all he can do is drive mindlessly for the sea. When he gets there he has to cast around for days and days in an exposed, indefensible place to find a new purpose and in the end he just resorts to what he’s been doing — walking.
I tend to agree with Nik here. The man in particular exhibits some serious PTSD. In fact, the “Black Hole of Trauma” helped me make sense of something I had been puzzling over: the man’s fear of any kind of pleasant dream. That seems to be precisely the kind of loss of fantasy that trauma often brings.
I think the main point I was trying to convey is that it can’t be post traumatic stress because the trauma isn’t over yet- “post” traumatic indicates that the trauma has ended, and the victim now has to integrate his standard identity with the identity of a victim. I think it can’t be PTSD because the trauma is ongoing.