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Literature
The representation of trauma for characters or personas in various forms of literature is often expressed through literary devices or through the structure that pieces have. These often mimic the feelings of the characters in order to give an accurate portrayal of their turmoil.


 * 1) The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

In this novel set in the early 1940s, Pecola, a young black girl, is trying to adhere to the white society which rejects her while simultaneously rejecting her black community. The latter inevitably ends up doing the same. What is vividly expressed is the indoctrination of white values through the "Dick and Jane" primer. This preface to the novel is an extract of a children's book describing the ideal nuclear family, however, it is repeated 3 times. The first time normally, the second without punctuation, the third without spaces between words. There is a mimicking of the drilling of the same values which is shown as making less and less sense to the black community. Moreover, small extracts from this primer are used at the start of various chapter in order to illustrate the divide between communities, the duality of the society of the time. In this sense, structure and literary devices illustrate the trauma of various characters or communities as a whole.


 * 1) Acquainted With The Night, Robert Frost

In one of his many poems dealing with mental health issues, Frost portrays the speaker of this poem as a man who is progressively detaching himself from society. Through the repetition of "I have been one acquainted with the night" the reader can understand a distance from human contact and a closeness to darkness or what could be considered depression, as the night is interpreted as an extended metaphor of the condition.As such, the poem ends and opens with that quote, demonstrating a cyclical aspect or what could be interpreted as a downwards spiral. With every stanza the speaker is seen distancing himself from different aspects of human life. For example, "he passed by the watchman on his beat" demonstrate his incapacity to make contact with the only other human he sees. Moreover, "on luminary clock against the sky proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right" demonstrates not only a the divide between the speaker and human concepts such as time, but a profound indifference to them. Once more, through another form of literature, literary devices and structure attempt to give accurate portrayals of trauma and suffering in order to help the reader understand the feelings of various characters and the effects of various conditions.