Abstract
This text explores how the Vietnam
War era affected representations of World War II in literature,
with a focus on the Kurt Vonnegut novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
That novel, which is the story of the gratuitous Allied attack on a
nonmilitary city, challenges the common conception that World War
II is a "good war" by directly comparing it to the decidedly
unpopular Vietnam War and by rendering Hemingwayan glamorizations
of combat as absurd and barbaric. Since the Second World War was
deemed a necessary war, those who fought in it often had to
suppress their wartime traumas because they were expected to uphold
the war's image as "good" and the veterans' reputation as "heroic."
However, the ambiguity and unpopularity of the Vietnam War opened a
window for veterans like Vonnegut to express publicly their grief
through literature. The result was Slaughterhouse-Five, a
novel that, despite its cynical tone, posits a wholly optimistic
approach for wartime veterans to comprehend and cope with the
traumas that they continue to experience well after the conclusion
of the war.
Table of Contents
Introduction - 1
Chapter One: Historical Context - 8
Chapter Two: Undermining the Myth of World War II - 23
Chapter Three: Literary Catharsis Through Fiction - 41
Conclusion - 61
About this Honors Thesis
Rights statement
- Permission granted by the author to include this thesis or dissertation in this repository. All rights reserved by the author. Please contact the author for information regarding the reproduction and use of this thesis or dissertation.
School |
|
Department |
|
Degree |
|
Submission |
|
Language |
|
Research Field |
|
关键词 |
|
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor |
|
Committee Members |
|