Combat Memoirs of the Vietnam War

Autores

  • Tom Burns Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)

Resumo

This article addresses the combat memoirs of the Vietnam War, autobiographical narratives written after the fact by soldier-writers, with an emphasis on their first-hand experiences of battle and their accompanying emotions. After an introduction that discusses the motivations, truth claims, and narrative structures of such works, two well-known examples (both were best-sellers on their publication) are examined at length:  Ron Kovic’s Born on the Fourth of July (1976), and Philip Caputo’s Rumors of War (1977). While both works follow the familiar trajectory of before-during-after, in which the cultural influences that made them both want to go to war and the consequences, physical and emotional of having survived it, they differ in the different socio-economic background of the authors and consequent attitudes toward their experience, as well as how the war has determined their later lives.

Biografia do Autor

  • Tom Burns, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)
    Doutor em inglês e literatura correspondente pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC). Professor Associado da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Programa de Pós Graduação em Letras: Estudos Literários.

Downloads

Edição

Seção

Temática Livre: Estudos Literários

Como Citar

Combat Memoirs of the Vietnam War. (2013). Via Litterae (ISSN 2176-6800): Revista De Linguística E Teoria Literária, 5(1), 257-280. //www.revista.ueg.br/index.php/vialitterae/article/view/2603