44 pages • 1 hour read
Jen BeaginBig Swiss
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Psychological Context: The Effects of Trauma on the Brain
Big Swiss explores the effects of long-term, unresolved trauma. Both Big Swiss and Greta have had traumatic experiences, but they deal with their traumas very differently. Big Swiss refuses her victimhood and turns away from her trauma. She compartmentalizes her assault as a part of her past that has no place in her present or her future. Greta has not reflected on or dealt with her trauma, preventing her from developing identity, strong emotional connections, and goals for happiness and stability.
Trauma has a direct influence over a human being’s neurobiology. There are three types of trauma: Acute trauma is suffered from a single incident; chronic trauma is developed through constant exposure to the same trauma, such as in a situation of domestic abuse; complex trauma is developed through varied and multiple traumatic events. Greta’s trauma resembles complex trauma, as she has experienced several different isolated traumas throughout her life, whereas Big Swiss suffers from acute trauma from her assault.
Psychologists believe that there are four responses to trauma: flight, fight, freeze, and fawn. Greta is both a fleer and a freezer. She literally flees from her trauma by breaking up with Stacy, quitting therapy, and moving far away. She has also frozen her identity and emotions in time, suppressing her inner child. Big Swiss is a fighter who works through her trauma and creates other structures in her life that keep her focused on her future and her wellbeing.
The neurobiological relationship with trauma is important in understanding trauma. Trauma can have a profound impact on the development of the brain, particularly the brainstem which controls our most basic actions such as breathing and sleeping. The earlier a person experiences trauma, the more that trauma can affect brain development. Because Big Swiss was 20 years old when her assault occurred, her brain could better handle acute trauma. Greta’s complex trauma began in childhood, which could have inhibited the growth of her brain. The age at which the women experience trauma, and their varying levels of exposure to trauma, are reflected in their life experiences: Big Swiss is more well-adjusted to the world around her and lives a status quo life, while Greta lives on the margins of society in a dilapidated home indulging in ethical violations with her job.
Cultural Context: Voyeurism
Voyeurism is the practice of gaining pleasure, often sexual, from watching others who are engaged in (usually sexual) activity. Voyeurism is often predicated on the voyeur remaining hidden from those they are watching. For example, Greta becomes sexually attracted to the tenor of Big Swiss’s voice; she hears Big Swiss’s voice through the therapy recordings and becomes infatuated with her. Voyeurism can also entail enjoyment from watching the pain of others; Greta likes her job as a transcriber because it gives her an insider’s look into the pain of others. Greta has a problem with her voyeuristic behavior for two reasons. First, voyeurism enables Greta to indulge in self-isolation without feeling the need to engage others. Secondly, Greta’s voyeurism bleeds into her real life, making it difficult to distinguish reality from voyeuristic projection.
Voyeurism becomes a mental health condition when voyeurs repeatedly act on their urges in non-consensual and unethical ways. Throughout her relationship with Big Swiss, Greta can’t separate her original projection of Big Swiss through voyeurism from the reality of Flavia. Greta’s narrative voice only ever calls her “Big Swiss,” refusing to use Flavia’s actual name. Greta’s continuation of her job after beginning an affair with Big Swiss is unethical. Greta doesn’t deal with other responsibilities in her life because she is so entranced by her voyeurism. Greta’s voyeurism is suggested to be a result of her emotional detachment: She deals with people as projections of her fantasies, instead of dealing with them directly, such as her continued use of “Big Swiss” for Flavia. Greta’s struggle with her unethical voyeurism is at the core of the novel’s conflict.
