Psychological Trauma of Rabbi in The Elected Member Abstract

ber was the Booker Prize winning novel of Bernice Rubens. From the perspective of trauma theory， this paper will try to explore the reasons of Rabbi’ s psychological trauma and thus try to uncover the problems of their family education and the malady of their way of communication， and reveal the author’ s humanistic care.

【Key Words】： The Elected Member； trauma theory； psychological trauma

1 Introduction

Bernice Rubens was born in Cardiff on July 28， 1928， she is one of Britain’ s most successful Post-World War British Jewish writers， the first woman to win the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1970. “She looks very Jewish， and in her writing she has never shied away from that which she knows best： life in the tight-knit， immigrant Lithuanian-Jewish community in Cardiff where she grew up” （Sorrel Kerbel， 893）. Apart from The Elected Member， Rubens is the prolific author of another 24 novels.

The Elected Member is the best-known novel of Bernice Rubens which is about the Zweck family， a well-to-do Orthodox Jewish family in England， and how it slowly disintegrated because of their firm hold onto their culture. In this novel， “Rubens borrows from Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’ to order her familial theme： the novel starts with Zweck incarcerated in his bedroom， tormented by his fears of crawling silverfish，and ends with the confirmation of his ejection as the family closes ranks.” （159）

2 The Traumatic Events and symptoms of Rabbi

Cathy Caruth defined trauma as “trauma describes an overwhelming experience of sudden or catastrophic events in which the response to the event occurs in the often delayed， uncontrolled repetitive appearance of hallucinations and other intrusive phenomenon”（Cathy Caruth： 11）. There must be certain events that leading to people’ s psychological trauma. The traumatic events is “outside the range of usual human experience”（William， 1980： 10）. And it must be something threatening to people’ s life or that of others.

In The Elected Member， Rabbi was depressed and distressed most of the time. His life was totally a failure with “Two sad unmarried daughters， one with her earnest scheitel， and in another room， his broken son”（Rubens， 1969： 219） when he died. He was more than 70 years old， but his life was far from peaceful， an ailing son need to be taken care of and an unmarried daughter was a good anxiety to him. These are the trauma events of Rabbi， as well as the death of his wife. “If confronted with such events， people would usually meet with a violation of their familiar outlooks towards the world and their life thereafter and they are precipitated into a state of extreme confusion and insecurity .”（DePrince， 2002： 71-82）

When people witness or experience traumatic events， and after they have been greatly influenced by the traumatic events， they would have some psychological symptom and problems accordingly. Rabbi’ s traumatic symptom include the sense of helplessness， bewilderment， confusing and pessimism. In the novel， Norman’ s drug addictive caught Rabbi in a dilemma. Norman was his only son， he wanted him to be cured， but dared not to see his tortuous during the treatment. The thought of Esther also made Rabbi confused， they had not seen each other for more than twenty years. Actually， he missed Esther and wanted to see her， but he was confused for his promise to his wife for never let Esther come back the house. This alienation between the flesh and blood tortured him， made him distressed and sad. It is just the dilemma of Rabbi’ s spiritual confusion that has led to his mental breakdown.

3 Main Factors Leading to the Psychological Trauma of Rabbi

Rabbi’ s mental stress and psychological trauma was caused by his own characteristics and the inappropriate communicative approach and education method of the family.

As his wife Sarah was dominated in the house， Rabbi was weak and indecisive， he had to let Sarah use the extreme education method to teach Norman. Rabbi afraid that if he took Norman’ s side， it will kill Sarah， so he just sat， timid and neutral. Rabbi’ s characteristics and his attitude towards Norman’ s education was indispensable to Norman’ s degenerated afterwords which in turn traumatized himself. When it comes to Esther， although he wanted to see her， he was dare not to broke the promise he gave Sarah until he was seriously ill. So it was his indecisive and hesitation which made this affair tortured him as well as Esther for a long time.

The traumatic events of Rabbi’ s psychological trauma was also related to the parents’ especially Sarah’ s education method. Sarah was dominated and didn't realize that her controlling love to Norman would destroy him in the future， because she even didn't know what Norman really want and cared about his sexual identity. The lack of wholehearted communication between parents and children would definitely generate some unexpected accidents. If the children had some trouble， parents were easily been traumatized.

4 Rabbi’ s Emergency Strategy of Psychological Trauma

There are fundamentally two aspects to help the traumatized people to reestablish what they have lost during the process of being traumatized. “The one way of healing the trauma is to decondition the anxiety， depression and despair caused by trauma lest that the traumatized victims would succumb to the very negative and pessimistic conditions. The other way is to help the traumatized to change their outlooks and attitudes towards their life and themselves after their traumatic experiences”（Herman， 1992： 23）. In the novel， Rabbi has taken certain therapeutic measures to relief his mental pressure cased by Norman’ s drug addictive and Esther’ s elopement， and tried to reestablish his hope for life and the reunion of their family.

Although under the blow of his failed life he also tried to be strong and tolerate Norman’ s excessive behavior of hallucination. He didn't give up the treatment of Norman and believed that one day he would be cured. Rabbi understand that if Norman was cured and get away from the drugs， his mental pressure will be alleviated and their family will be happier. For Esther， he made the concession to let her come back to home. Though he finally died， at least he had made great efforts to come out from his psychological trauma. Esther’ s elopement with a non-Jewish boy hurt Mr and Mrs Zweck deeply， So when Sarah passed away， Rabbi promised her that Esther should not be forgiven and Esther’ s name “was a forbidden word in the house””（Rubens， 1969： 101）. But actually， Rabbi missed Esther and wanted to see her. This problem had nagging him for a long time， and at last he made a concession for the relationship with Esther.

In the psychological therapeutic system of Sigmund Freud， Freud thinks that it is a very helpful and effective means to burst out the pain and the depression for the traumatized people because the traumatic experiences would lead to self-destruction sometimes if the trauma is so violent and unmanageable. Therefore， it becomes extremely important to help the traumatized to overcome the psychological trauma by the means of outpouring their suppressed emotions， of which retelling is one of the supplement psychological therapy for the traumatized people.

5 Conclusion

This thesis is devoted greatly to the elaboration of the mental confusion and psychological trauma of Rabbi Zweck in The Elected Member as well as the elaboration of the various symptoms and factors of Rabbi’ trauma. By a thorough interpretation of the exterior and interior factors accounting for his trauma， the thesis attempts to probe into the underlying problems in their family， these problems have fatal harm for both Parents and children. The exploration of Rabbi’ s traumatic symptoms illustrated that Bernice Rubens explores loneliness， failure and the potential destructiveness of family relationships in Rabbi’ s family and the author pay much attention to portray the character’ s inner word and the change of their mood under the pressure of the outer world.

References

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[2] Dominic Head. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction， 1950-2000， Cambridge University Press， 2002.

[4] Herman， Judith. Trauma and Recovery. New York： Kennikat Press， 1992.

[5] Sorrel Kerbel. Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century， Routledge/Taylor and Francis Books， Inc.2003.

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