مشخصات پژوهش

Life has been accompanied by sundry traumatic experiences, which have been crystalized into the realm of literature by numerous eminent authors accentuating trauma theory. Almost all the modern literature authors like Joseph Conrad (1859-1924), Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), William Faulkner (1897-1962), Samuel Becket (1906-1989), Virginia Woolf (1882- 1941), Franz Kafka (1883-1924), and so on so forth have had finished and polished works spinning around trauma theory. Dr. Robert Hobson (1920-1999), a Jungian psychiatrist, proposed a therapeutic method for trauma called CMT, which has its origins in prolific Carl Jung’s studies of trauma. The two main foci of CMT are self and trauma so when a person is traumatized, his “self” halts developing and the psychiatrist is ought to drag him out of his alienated world by any possible way, especially by means of conversation. This thesis aims to highlight the therapeutic role of literature in man’s life by underscoring the Conversational Model Therapy (CMT)—A Jungian therapy coined by Dr. R. Hobson— in Edward Franklin Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (WAVW), solving the two traumatized couples’ complexes, namely George and Martha, Nick and Honey, by means of “collusion”. It aims to direct attention to CMT and its two principal factors, self and trauma being scrutinized thoroughly within three chapters. The crucial fact about trauma is the unsayable feature of it, binding the traumatized to have bit in his mouth. The moment the traumatized expresses himself by means of any possible way, trauma halts haunting and gradually vanishes. The elder-traumatic-couple (George and Martha) are trying to express themselves through harsh dialogues, games, and arguments throughout the acts, in order to cast it off; the youngers as well, however, in a mild way. All four characters are suffering from past-deposited traumas traceable within their manners and speech. All along the acts, characters are struggling to communicate their inner c