Reading trauma narratives: the contemporary novel & the psychology of oppression

Introduction: Ways of reading trauma in literary narratives

Re-creating the split self in Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace

Fear and commodification in the shaping of America in Toni Morrison's Paradise and A Mercy

Obsessions and possessions in William Faulkner's Absalom Absalom!

The traumas of love and death in Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body

Trauma, gender, and commodification in Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club and Invisible Monsters

Conclusion: Trauma as a critical juncture of society, culture, and human psychology.