奈保尔短篇小说《孤独的人》描写了一个印度厨师跟随主人来到华盛顿,经历文化的碰撞,人物性格发生很大的改变。主角桑托什在孟买时快乐而无知,在华盛顿公寓里他平静而压抑,在印度餐馆里他张惶而狡黠。本文用创伤理论来解释主人公桑托什的心路历程,揭示空间的转移,文化的碰撞,身份的变换带给他的创伤。并指出这种创伤一直固着地存在着,最终他虽拿到美国绿卡,但却成为一个孤独的人,一个只是靠生存惯性活下去的人。 Naipaul short story “Lonely Man” depicts an Indian chef who came to Washington with his master and underwent a cultural collision that changed his character dramatically. The protagonist Santos was happy and ignorant in Mumbai, calm and depressed in the Washington apartment where he was cynical and sly. This paper uses the theory of trauma to explain the mentality of Santos, revealing the transfer of space, the collision of culture and the transformation of his identity. And pointed out that this trauma has been fixed, and eventually he got the green card of the United States, but eventually he became a loner, a man who lived by the inertia of survival.