As the famous writer C. S. Lewis once said, “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become. ” Literature is one of the many ways in which is able to express themselves, where they explain to the world what they had just experienced in their lives. Many authors will especially write about historic events, such as wars, that not only impacted others, but themselves as well.
During World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War, the writing style and topics of literature were significantly impacted as a result of the wars. World War I, also known as the Great War, caused the end of innocence in the works of American literature. Prior to the war, the majority of the novels were either fiction or discussing the theory of materialism. Nonetheless, both types of books provided readers with entertainment and something for them to ponder about.
However, after World War I, several novels were centered around the war; some of them revealed the harsh, grotesque reality of the war that most civilians did not know about. In the article, “Why literature written out the First World War is some of the last century’s finest writing”, Katherine Ashenburg, wrote, “The Great War had a horrid novelty… in which it began in idealism and naivete, and sooner rather than later many people realized that the whole thing was an apparently endless muddle” (1).
Every country, whether or not they were involved in World War I, believed that the war grew confusing and even more horrible than anyone was prepared to see. Many of the soldiers who survived the war became to very famous writers for their novels that explained how the war affected them personally. Writers such as Erich Maria Remarque, the author of All Quiet on the Western Front, or Robert Graves, the author of A Farewell to Arms, wrote about their experience in World War I through a fictional character to possibly recover from their emotional wounds that came from the war.
As a result, although some parts in their novels are extremely disturbing, the novels did help readers comprehend the horrific conditions of World War I that soldiers had to face. Ultimately, World War I strongly impacted literature, as it began a whole new genre specifically for the horrid concept known as war. Besides the impact of World War I on literature with its savage ways, World War II also developed an influence, but not as dreadfully. One may infer that many of the writers who wrote about World War II were not very surprised by the heartless war.
Kurt Vonnegut, one the many writers who wrote about their experiences in war, developed a very graphic novel called Slaughterhouse-Five, which is set in the same place where he was taken as a prisoner of war. Also, there was Norman Mailer’s novel, The Naked and the Dead, which exposed all the violence and cruelty of World War II. However, there were many authors who wrote about World War II in a more cheerful manner. There were writers who are considered to be “postmodernists” (Dickstein 1), and chose to write about “the rapid pace and the sheer implausibility of contemporary life” (1).
These writers chose not write about World War II in first person point of view. Instead, the writers of the war wrote fictional novels that grasped the readers’ minds and made them think about realistic events that could have actually have occurred in the United States. What was really significant about the postmodernist authors was that they were not all just men, but also women and immigrants. Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian-born American citizen, wrote a few famous English novels, such as “Pnin”, which are loosely based on his own life experiences.
In his novel, not only is the main character a refugee of WW2, but Nabokov incorporated hints about the pain and suffering caused by the Holocaust. In fact, there are many other immigrant authors besides Nabokov who wrote about their past. Writers, such as Sandra Cisneros and Maxine Hong Kingston, composed novels that incorporated and connected the influence of America upon their own heritage cultures (“Since 1945, Making Connections” 1). This notion also appeared in Cisneros’ novel, Woman Hollering Woman, or Maxine Hong Kingston’s No name Woman. Both books include traces of their authors’ previous culture and how America influenced it.
As a result of World War II, post-war American Literature became refined and potent. Similar to the Great War and World War II, the Vietnam War contributed to the American Literature that the United States consists of today. Like most other war novels, those written about the Vietnam War are very descriptive. However, to write about the only war that the United States lost, those novels are unique. Yet, they are very specific to a place and time and cannot be overlooked. In the second page of the article, “Literature and the Vietnam War”, Judith B.
Walzer wrote “Unlike great war fiction.. The Vietnam literature has no ‘escape hatches’—only a few moments of romance, virtually no comic relief and scant emphasis on coming-of-age energy. ” In other words, Vietnam writers did not “distract” the readers from the defying war; they wanted the readers to fully experience the total death and horror that the writers had felt about the war. Bao Ninh, a former North Vietnamese soldier, wrote the novel, The Sorrow of War, A Novel of North Vietnam, to guide the readers through the terrifying moments he encountered while at war.
Ninh could not write about other topics besides the death he had seen. In his novel, Ninh said that his “pen disobeyed” when he was attempting to write other works of literature. In the words of Walzer, Ninh was constantly “restroking” his “horrible furnace” for war memories. In addition, Bao was not the only one. Many writers, such as Tim O’Brien, Jim Morris, Nathaniel Tripp, wrote about how deeply affected them Vietnam War affected them. In addition, there were writers who questioned, and even criticized, why the United States, or any other country besides North and South Vietnam were involved in the war.
In the article, “Vietnam War Literature”, Catherine Callow wrote, “Since 1955 literally thousands of works of literature have been written about the involvement of America and other countries in Vietnam. In turn, these works have generated over a thousand books and articles of literary criticism… ” Many writers and poets, such as Allen Ginsberg and Robert Lowell, severely opposed America’s contribution to the Vietnam War, and expressed their feelings through their works of literature. As a result of the Vietnam War, the pain expressed in the novels never disappeared.
Throughout the years, American Literature was influenced by World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. After World War I, the literature exposed the horrid experience the soldiers felt. However, in World War II, writers decided to take a step back from all the realism and wrote more joyful fiction novels. Those novels would also distract readers’ minds from the shocking reality of World War II. As time progressed, the Vietnam War novels revealed the harsh reality of war to the readers. In closure, the damages of war are purely more than physical. The physical physiological effects of war can be found within post war novels.
