Beyond the trauma hero: the discourse of American war fiction from the Global War on Terror

The recent US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, the last major theatre of war for post 9/11 veterans, marks a turning point for the United States. This new period of relative warlessness allows the nation to reflect on its collective experiences of the last 20 years of war and think critically about our actions and policies that governed the Global War on Terror. An essential first step in understanding our nation's actions during the Global War on Terror is understanding the people who fought the war and the "others"1 we fight. One approach that may provide valuable insight into our national understanding of veterans and the people we go to war with is studying veterans' stories about their time in service. This paper examines the characterization of both American military service members and the characters portrayed as enemies, non-American, and generally, as other within war fiction written by American veterans who have served from 11 Sept. 2001 to the present day. I argue that the authors attempt to create a new narrative of what it means to be a veteran, what it means to go to war, and new ways to understand people categorized as the enemy. Specifically, I believe that these new narratives from veterans are attempting to, as Robert Young argues in Postcolonial Remains, deconstruct the category of the other and offer alternative approaches to the understanding of themselves and the enemy to create a "mutual understanding and universal equality" (39).

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English (MU)

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Missouri--Columbia

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Weiss, Michael

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cohen, Samuel

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32469/10355/91541

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/91541