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Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Augsburg, language: English, abstract: The 20th century was a century of conflict. Never before in the history of mankind had there been that many nations at war, fighting each other with huge armies and weapons of mass destruction. The two World Wars and the ideological battle between East and West had a huge impact on the social and political world. Many of today ́s conflicts can be traced back to the great wars and years that followed them, in which the nations involved tried to find a new balance and world order. The USA took part in several significant wars and is now the last remaining super-power in the world. Of all the conflicts the U.S. was involved in, its role in the Second World War and the war in Vietnam are the two most vividly remembered. Throughout history, people have constructed and displayed a sense of their past, their collective memory and cultural knowledge through works of art. In the twentieth century, this process of myth-making has been fulfilled mainly by novels and movies. Many of these "vehicles of memory" have portrayed the wars and captured the atmosphere in America at that time. Yet, there is a big difference in the way and the extent to which WW II and Vietnam have been digested in the conscience of the nation. Although the Second World War affected more families directly and more Americans fell in those years than during the war in Vietnam, there seems to be a tendency to suppress the memories of the latter. It is only in times of crisis (as the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq) that the nightmarish image of "Vietnam" appears in media commentaries and political speeches and becomes a topic of public awareness. What is the reason? What role did literature play in the process of coming to terms with the terrible experience of war? Which lessons do writers of war literature offer in terms of dealing with present or future c
Reverberations of the Vietnam War can still be felt in American culture. The post-9/11 United States forays into the Middle East, the invasion and occupation of Iraq especially, have evoked comparisons to the nearly two decades of American presence in Viet Nam (1954-1973). That evocation has renewed interest in the Vietnam War, resulting in the re-printing of older War narratives and the publication of new ones. This volume tracks those echoes as they appear in American, Vietnamese American, and Vietnamese war literature, much of which has joined the American literary canon. Using a wide range of theoretical approaches, these essays analyze works by Michael Herr, Bao Ninh, Duong Thu Huong, Bobbie Ann Mason, le thi diem thuy, Tim O'Brien, Larry Heinemann, and newcomers Denis Johnson, Karl Marlantes, and Tatjana Solis. Including an historical timeline of the conflict and annotated guides to further reading, this is an essential guide for students and readers of contemporary American fiction
War and violence have arguably been some of the strongest influences on literature, but the relation is complex: more than just a subject for story-telling, war tends to reshape literature and culture. Modern war literature necessarily engages with national ideologies, and this volume looks at the specificity of how American literature deals with the emotional, intellectual, social, political, and economic contradictions that evolve into and out of war. Raising questions about how American ideals of independence and gender affect representations of war while also considering how specifically American experiences of race and class interweave with representations of combat, this book is a rich and coherent introduction to these texts and critical debates.
This book examines representations of war throughout American literary history, providing a firm grounding in established criticism and opening up new lines of inquiry. Readers will find accessible yet sophisticated essays that lay out key questions and scholarship in the field. War and American Literature provides a comprehensive synthesis of the literature and scholarship of US war writing, illuminates how themes, texts, and authors resonate across time and wars, and provides multiple contexts in which texts and a war's literature can be framed. By focusing on American war writing, from the wars with the Native Americans and the Revolutionary War to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this volume illuminates the unique role representations of war have in the US imagination.
Novel excerpts include: Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers, David Halberstam's One Very Hot Day, and Jeff Danziger's Lieutenant Kitt. Short stories include Asa Baber's "The Ambush," Tobias Wolff's "Wingfield," and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." Drama excerpts include David Rabe's Streamers and Lanford Wilson's The 5th of July. Poets include: Denise Levertov, Jan Barry, E. D. Ehrhart, Basil T. Paquet, Stephen Sossaman, Bryan Alec Floyd, Bruce Weigl, and Trang Thi Nga.
An examination of the themes and literary styles of American poetry and fiction dealing with war includes discussions of authors, such as Ernest Hemingway, E. E. Cummings, and Joseph Heller
The imaginative literature of the Vietnam War participates-both overtly and covertly-in a struggle for national memory. First-generation Vietnam War literature, focusing on representations of combat and life in the battlefield, strove to give testimony, to write history. Later writings, in their range of genre and style, investigate and interrogate the very meaning of war. To reflect these two stages, Philip Jason divides his newest book of literary criticism into two sections: 'acts' and 'shadows.' In 'Acts, ' Jason provides formal and cultural readings of combat narratives-by such authors as James Webb, Larry Heinemann, and Joe Haldeman-and explores the meaning of 'authenticity' as applied to Vietnam War texts. 'Shadows' looks both forward and backward from the combat zone, challenging the parameters of what we define as 'Vietnam War literature.
A concise, interdisciplinary approach to the popular but complex of subject of representations of the Vietnam War in American history, literature and film.