War without End: Trauma, Flashbacks, and Fragmented Memory in Vietnam War Literature

Abstract

Vietnam War literature is the portrayal of the war not as something over with but as an indefinite war, which is still remembered, experienced, and a part of one’s identity. The present paper will focus on the role of trauma, fragmented memory, and flashbacks as main narrative techniques in the Vietnam War writing, based on both the American and the Vietnamese point of view. Based on such central texts like The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh and The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Le Thi Diem Thuy, the paper examines how non-linear representation, silence, repetition and discontinuous storytelling reflect the disrupted consciousness of post-traumatic survivors. The paper emphasizes the role of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), moral ambiguity, inherited trauma and the environmental destruction especially the trail of the Agent Orange, to project the war effects both across time and space. Through foregrounding civilian suffering, refugee displacement and postmemory as well as veteran experiences, the analysis questions the heroic war operantization and focuses on the role of literature in being a kind of psychological and cultural witnessing.