Grief Bonds and Hope in Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin

Abstract

Researching into Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin within the framework of trauma and ethics studies this thesis explores how the bereaved parents in the novel cope with their loss of children and discover new meanings of life through establishing new connections with others The thesis contains two main chapters in addition to the introductory and concluding chapters Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s and Cathy Caruth’s trauma theories Chapter One analyzes three cases of bereaved parents Marcia Solomon and Claire in order to examine their reactions to their children’s unexpected deaths Different from Marcia’s depression and Solomon’s repression Claire joins a support group in the hope to overcome sorrow Instead of bidding farewell to her son who dies in the Vietnam War Claire relives traumatic memory when narrating her story to other bereaved mothers Having revealed in the first chapter the insufficiency of story-telling in helping the bereaved parents Chapter Two then turns to other alternatives that the novel has provided in transforming trauma into empathy Emmanuel Levinas’s notion of face sheds critical light on my examination of the ways that Claire and another bereaved mother Gloria work through their own loss by developing new connections with each other Through responding to each other’s wound Claire and Gloria not only learn how to live with grief but extend their maternal love to Tillie’s orphaned granddaughters

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English
Supervisor	Pei-Chen Liao (Supervisor)