American literature and war

American Literature War Writing

War Themes in American Literature

War is one of the toughest topics for writers to handle. They have to deal with extreme inner demons based on their traumatic experiences in the field, but have to do so without completely isolating their characters from their readers, many of whom have never even been to war. Overall, there is a clear trend that has developed in American war writing. As writers humanize the experience of war, they also have shown how absolutely destructive, terrifying, and seemingly pointless it is.

Writers discussing war face a number of difficult hardships. Essentially, they have to try to make sense of their experiences during the war that have scarred them. They face the daunting task of trying to express their unique pain and grief to an unsuspecting public, many of their readers have not been to war. Thus, writers discussing war have to try to express their grief without isolating themselves from the public's perspective as well. Of course, the representations of war differ dramatically from era to era, especially as war got more systematic and automated. For example, writers in the Civil War often showed the futility of war and the massive toll on human life modern wars were beginning to show. The Civil War brought with it a sense of futility for the soldiers who had to deal with the extreme circumstances of a new, modern type of war. Often times, writers humanized the war through using actual journal entries of soldiers and officers in order to show what they were going through during such a tragic period in American history.

As time passed, the idea of war began to seem more and more futile. After World War II, Kurt Vonnegut fictionalized his experiences at the allied bombing of Dresden. In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut portrays a very interesting character seen in Billy Pilgrim. As he is stuck in a German POW camp, allied bombers destroy the city, killing many civilians and allied soldiers in the process. The experience completely shatters him, as he travels in and out of the underground locker during the bombing, going to outer space and his internal memories. Here, Vonnegut portrays a very dark image of war. It is completely destructive. Even the allied efforts end up hurting innocents and other allied soldiers, illustrating how completely destructive and pointless war seems to be in actually achieving anything good in the end.

Meanwhile, Tim O'Brien continues this theme of destruction and trauma in his work The Things They Carried. Taking place in one of the most controversial wars of American history, the Vietnam War, O'Brien not only humanizes the war time experiences of his characters, but also the extreme traumatic burdens the war puts on their soldiers. Every character has his own unique burden to carry, with the emotional toll of that burden being represented by the physical things they cannot let go of during the context of the war. The characters are made to seem human because they have real human fears and emotions, and they are made to feel completely out of place in a war that has nothing to do with them. They all strive to get back to their own lives in the United States, but many of them fail to live through the duration of the war. Another aspect that O'Brien brings up here is that these emotional scars never fade. The burdens the soldiers carry follow them either to the grave or back to the United States. From this perspective, war is seen as incredibly damaging, not only physically but emotionally and mentally as well. The characters are forever burdened by their issues and experiences at war, as many feel guilty for even having simply survived the war, while so many of their fellow soldiers died miserably in the jungle.

Personally, I like the more realistic undertones seen in American war writing. I feel that the plight of the soldiers must shine through to understand what war does to people on an individual level. These unique characters have given their lives to their country, only to be permanently scarred. They are forced to return to a world that does not understand them. It is this aspect of how war affects soldiers after it has ended that is most compelling. War does not end when the gunfire stops. It is important for American readers to understand what trauma can come form a soldier's experience at war so they are more sensitive to how to approach soldiers who have returned from war.