A Study Of Evolution Of American War Novels

Usually, the academic consensus is that "literature is manology"(Golky). Then,besides writing war itself, man in the war is the writing focus of war literature as well.War novels examine, describe and interpret war aesthetically, revealing man’s livingcondition and destiny in the war. Literary aesthetics is the cardinal property of allliterary categories, including war literature. Strictly speaking, writings without literaryaesthetic fuction are not literary works. War novel is one of the main forms of warliterature, and it is not a simple mechanical description, repetition and reproduction ofwar, but a aesthetic subject’s dynamic reflection to the war as the aesthetic object. Theaesthetic connotation includes two components, namely the literary expression formconsisting of language, text, rhetoric, writing techniques and literary style, and theaesthetic social life composed by the aesthetic subject. The former has non-utilitarianfeatures, while the latter inevitably has it to a certain extent. War literature is nothistory, but the shadow behind the history. It is essentially the man’s individualexperience memory of war history, man’s reflection on both the war and himself withthe the tide of war receding, and the witness of times and the history, so the literaryaesthetics is impossible to ungear the specific historical stage, the particular war andthe synchronic social environment. Publicity There are not only the aesthetic subject’sartistic personality and hero worship in human nature, but also the compassionate callof humanity and the rational cry beyond, and against the war..While novelists in asense affirmin that the war promotes the social development in their works, they domore to reveal and criticize the war’s cruelty, destruction and the distortion of humannature, and express their different attitude and sensibility to disparate wars with theaesthetic idiosyncracy of war literature. The attitudes and sensibility come from thedifferent aesthetic subjects, different stages or from the same subject in different stage,in different context, take on variety of aesthetic characteristics obviously, which canbe seen in war aesthetics’ personal identity, ethnic identity, national identity and common emotion of human identity. The multiple identities often makes these"identity" categories no longer be quite distinct from one another, or in duality. At thesame time, the rule that things generally associated will lead to cross-ruffingphenomenon among them and the perplexing cognition. In the surface structure of warliterary works, this phenomenon is usually described as the "civil war’s" breaking outin the heroes’ soul fully. Id’s appeal, morality’s torture, conscience’s questioning,humanity’s protests, honor’s temptation and belief’s inspiration are quete enough tomake them face a dilemma, hesitate to make their choice of the above mentionedcategories, suffer from "you can’t have it both ways", endure miserable purgatory tomake choice among individuality, collectivity, nationality, country and mankind.From this point of view, on the aesthetic object which the aesthetic subject of warliterature faces has a nondescript fuzziness and two sides. War novel, as an importantcomponent in the novel lineage, shares the general indispensable aestheticcharacteristic of the rest.. However, war novels have their aesthetic idiosyncracybeyond the general form of literary aesthetics. It is the superposition of epic, noble,heroic, tragic, legend and critical aesthetic categories that constitute the aestheticpersonality of war novels.War has generally been viewed as the extention of politics.It is the politics with bloodshed, so it shows the great significance to mine, refine andexplore the literary aesthetics from the war novels in the research field of warliterature. America formed the indissoluble bound with the war from the first day theUnited States was founded. The profound significance of literary aesthetics of warnovels in different historical periods have proveded this research with rich and vividexamples, and reliable arguments. From Lexington gunfire in April19，1775rising upthe curtain of American war of independence, in July4,1776the ContinentalCongress passing and issueing the Declaration of independence, to the time theindependence of the thirteen British colonies in North America recognized by Britainin September3,1783, American war of independence got its end after eight years.The war for America is tantamount to the creation of the world, and it is of greatsignificance and profound influence for the American,. The nature of American warof independence is bourgeois revolution. As a result, the shackles of of the Britishcolonial rule and the old relations of production had been smashed throughly, thesocial productive forces had been liberated, which cleared up the obstacles on the wayof capitalist development in America. Simultaneously, the colonial people got their unprecedented liberation, won national independence, set up a state of their own, so inthis sense, America war of independence is a great war of national liberation, whichshould become the important aesthetic contents of America independent war literatureand its fulcrum. Since literary works reflecting the Independence War theme,especially fictions, occupy a unique position in American war literature, it is helpfulfor the academic field to re-examine and and know better the American history,politics, economy and culture in this period of time through their studying andexploring its literary aesthetics. The general style of American independence warnovels differs from other war novels apparently. The difference is mainly manifestedin the writer’s attitude to war, war narrative style and emotions of a nation’s identity. Itshould be admitted that the independence war novels, especially those classicspublished early after the war, essentially took romanticism as their general tone, andexpressed a kind of hundred-percent spirit of patriotism and legend of heroism. Theromantic tone of novels in the aesthetic history of America war novels is a beautifulscenery line. It is the fact that American people’s aesthetic needs of national liberationand the independence of the country have been met by the writers’ positive attitudetoward the war, the romantic creating approach and the narrative techniques, theiraffirmation of the national spirit and their praise of patriotism. In1821, James Cooperpublished his war novel The Spy. The work is regarded as a ground breaking work inAmerica war novels, which made Cooper great renown in the literary world, and“Cooper school” formed in1930s. Cooper and his followers wrote the bloodyromantic history of national spirits in American Independent war through their warnovels. The romantic aesthetic creating style began to shift gradually to the realisticportrait in the1930s.After independent war, the national contradiction has dropped to second place,domestic class contradiction rose to the top, and after more than half a century ofdevelopment, this class contradiction had come to the degree of unprecedentedintensification by the end of1950s. If the viewpoint that the independent war is acompletely just war with no more doubt from the American people, then about thenature of American civil war, different voices exist actually. The mainstream viewgenerally believed that the war between the south and the north was an Americancivil war, which was the second bourgeois revolution and a just war to defend thenational unity after the American war of independence. It prevented the United Statesfrom spliting, maintained the unity successfully; abolished the backward slavery in the South, liberated the productive forces, paved the way for the further developmentof American capitalism. For the cause of the outbreak of the American civil war, KarlMarx, from the perspective of social and historical development, analysed and drewthe conclusion, namely the civil war between southen slavery and the free laborsystem in the North. The cause of the war is that the two system had been unable tocoexist on the North American continent, but only one system allowed to dominate.Many of the Casualties caused by the war is the largest number of casualties in anydomestic and foreign wars participated by America up to now. The feelings to the warbetween the north and the south would be different for people from different places.To the north, the southern black slaves were freed; slavery was abolished; and thesystem of capitalist wage labor replaced the slavery, so the productive forces wasgreatly liberated to promote the development of capitalism. The war successfullyreached its purpose to defend the national unity, to avoid secession, restore thelegitimacy of the federal government authority. For the south, what they lost includingthe idyllic life, traditional plantation under the control of slavery and the unforgetablesouthern complex. Their failure is reflected not only on the material level, but also onthe spirit level. From the humanistic perspective, on both sides, this civil warconsumed the massive manpower and resources, brought American people with theinfluence of long time in many aspects, especially in mental hurt. In the creationprocess of America civil war novels, the writers’ stance on Civil War determined howthey went about writing this war, which affected their screening of the aestheticcontents, and their belonging. In other words, the majority of the northern andsouthern writers had their different attitude and stance to the war just because of theirown different geographical location, for which the differences can be noticed clearlyin the civil war literary aesthetic activities. For most writers, the war novel themeswere focused on the following, such as performing the patriotism, caring for thebrothership, or expressing the sentiments, tragic aria and helpless elegy, or reflectingand rethingking the war beyond their utilitarian stance. During the period, the quantityof war novels with Cooper’s romantic legend style was quite a few, but short ofclassics. In contrast to the former, works look less in quantity, but full of excellentones. Among them, Gone Wth the Wind, from the typical perspective of the south,epically, displays the life experience, thoughts and feelings of plantation owners insouthen part of America, and interprets the big changes before and after the civil war,especially old South’s going far away gradually, the destruction of war and the fate of all creatures in the South. The author, Margaret Michel successfully shaped thetypical South, and discribed pastoral life and regional cultural aspects in differentlevel details to have created "a encyclopedia of manor legend". Another classic novelreflected American civil war is Stephen’s The Red Badge of Courage. The novel hasits own knack in aesthetic method, implications and the style, which has greatinfluences on the American war literature creation and leaves a lot in American warliterature history. The novel’s reflection and criticism of war has been acknowledgedto be the prototype of American anti-war novels. From the fuzzy processing on bothwar background and the name of characters in the novel, it can be figured out that themain aesthetic focus was placed outside the war by the author, and the novel reflectsthat real life has its absurdity as the war with prospective feature of modernism. Thework has been considered a classic novel in war literature of naturalism, and itsinfluence can be seen in Dos Passos, Hemingway and some other writers’ works.The World War I. was recognized as the unjust war between the great powers forworld hegemony. It broke out in June1914, and America didn’t join until April6,1917. The reasons for America not to join the war at the beginning are complex.Firstly, at the beginning of the war, America needed time for the necessary economicmobilization and military preparations. Secondly, America fully make use of thechance to trade weapons and military equipments for seizing big profit between thetwo military blocs. Thirdly, there was no public opinion basis to join the war inAmerican society at that time. As America joined the war late, relatively it lost less inthe war, but the war hurt the younger generation in America not less, especially tothose young intellectualsis who went to the European firefield with the ideal, theresponsibility and the patriotism indoctrinated by war propaganda to fight fordemocracy and the world peace. They realized they were cheated in the war, and theysuffered a lot from the double trauma when they came back to the American society.Disillusion of ideals and beliefs made one generation of young people suddenly lostlife direction, and fallen into a deep confusion. This kind of mood is widely found inAmerican war novels after World War I. The “Lost Generation” core writers’aesthetic orientation, aesthetic grasp, aesthetic schema are basically the mainstream ofwar literary creation. To sum up, the main domain of postwar war novels’ aesthetics isaround cruel, horrific, non-human battlefield, absurd and meaningless war, dark andbrutal army system, disillusioned ideal and despairing soul to arouse the thoughts onwar, life and fate."The lost generation" without unified creed is a literary genre between realism and modernism. The main members, such as Dos Passos, ErnestHemingway, Edward Cummings and some other writers had the personal experienceto participate in the war. Their literary creation of war novels mainly belongs torealism, but with naturalism and modernism tendency. They started from the view ofhumanism, pay more attention to man’s condition, situation and destiny in the war inorder to expose the cruelty, bloodiness and tragegy of war through realist andnaturalist description of battlefield fighting to deeply examine and powerfully criticizethe non-human, irrational nature of the war. Through the description of thedisillusionment of the ideal, the faith and the meaning of war, they show the readers akind of war-weariness, antiwar passions and emotional confusion, and furtherexamine the distorted human nature and the human alienation. Some of the works takethe war as the background, dilute the battle scene description, and turn the aestheticeyes to people’s mental and physical trauma, point out that the destruction and torturecame from enemies on the battlefield, but also from the allied army filled withauthoritarian, totalitarian and darkness, and eventually point to the officers and thewar machine, so as to highlight the anti-human nature of war of absurdity, destructionand meaninglessness, and associate the essence of with antiwar theme closely with thedestiny of human beings. Thus, the First World War novels’ aesthetics and its trendhave the significant and far-reaching impact on American war novel writing tradition,which can’t be undervalued. The Second World War is the largest war ever since theancient time in human history. In contrast to World War I, it has larger scale, moredevastating casualties and much more far-reaching influence. The war with anunprecedented level bitter and the disastrous consequences for people from both sidesat war almost destroyed the human civilization of several thousand of years. InSeptember1,1939, Nazi Germany occupied Poland with Blitzkrieg. The act of warmade Britain and France declared war on Germany in unison. The war started inEurope, but the flames of war spread over most half of the world in short time.Since the World War I. America had taken an isolationist policy. By the eve of WorldWar II, American isolationist forces were still very strong, they fought against USA’staking any responsibility out of America, and were reluctant to venture into this war.At the beginning of the outbreak of World War II, USA as performing in early periodin World War I., adopted a policy of neutrality. Its reason is in many aspects.Although the utilitarian motivation could not be excluded, it was largely due to publicopposition to joining the war and military preparation was inadequate yet. In December7,1942, the Japanese attacked on American Pacific Fleet, which made thefleet almost completely annihilated. On December8, America declared war on Japan,and11on Germany and Italy. Since then, America formally joined the world antifascist camp and started to play a decisive role in winning the anti fascist war over thewhole world. It is well-known that the beauty of literature originates from life, and itis the aesthetic subject’s aesthetic grasp to the art object. It is an active reflection ofreal life, and the concentration of specific social culture and the value orientation.Only America war literature is concerned, in spite of the influence from World War I.Novels on the postwar war novels, especially in the early postwar period, but the lattershowed obvious differences both in aesthetic ideology or aesthetic significancecompared with the former. About the second world war war novels, from the theme tothe skills and techniques of literary creation, are showing a trend of diversification,and aesthetic perspective of World War II war novels are more broader than before.Works directly reflecting the reality of the situation, have been rare, and few withintense political tendency. Anti fascist war determines the nature of post World WarII., so there have been few novels published with intense questioning about themeaning of the war, and direct suspicion of the just nature of the war, but to moveagainst the cruelty and misery of war, and the darkness and the autocratic tramplingon democracy in their own army. The army is often described as a miniature ofsociety, and the contradiction and the conflicts in the army between the officers andsoldiers, has been a kind of common aesthetic tendency. However, the traditionaltheme of being tired of war and antiwar in American war novels have not disappeared,but reflected on the war and cursed the war from the abstract perspective of humanity.From novels such as The Naked And the Dead and From Here to Eternity, the shadowof some of the early works can still be found, but on Heller’s Catch-22published, itmarks the American war novels have developed into the postmodernism stage frommodernism. This phenomenon is closely related to the international and demesticvarious contradictions intensifying increasingly of America during the30years afterthe war. In the world, USA has been experiencing the starting of cold war, frustrationof the Korean War and the bogging of Vietnam war, and at home, Mccarthy’s doctrineof fear in1950s and decadent and tumultuary1960s. The direct influence on warnovels is the aesthetic previous aesthetic strategies are too observant and conventionalto adapt to the absurd and crazy aesthetic object. Then, the black humor got to be therepresentative of the post-modernism aesthetics of War Novels after World War II. Entering the new century, postmodernism aesthetic has exposed the decadent situation,in order to get out of this predicament, to reposition the war novels on the humanisticspirit level, war novelists in the post-modern context, attempts to open a new path tointerpret history and reflect on the war in a personalized way, and then improve theaesthetic strategy of war novels in the hope of the more effective realization ofaesthetic value. In recent years, the emergence of New Realism creation of war novelsand the New Historicism creation of war novels has been stressed by the literarycriticism circles, but also formed the strong support and detailed footnote for thefuture direction of war novel aesthetic pluralism under the postmodern context.From the end of the war of independence to the end of the Second World War,American war novels experienced production, development, maturity and prosperityin several stages of development. American war novels in different historical periods,in addition to having obvious mark of the times of the literary aesthetics, has a closerelationship with great events, politics, economy, cultural background, the social trendof thought, and the concept of war and social psychology in each historical stage, tointerpret the development trace of the society and history, and the evolution ofAmerican view of war and conception of history. The development of American warnovels experienced, from variou angles, literary tide baptism of Romanticism,Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, Postmodernism to New Realism and NewHistoricism, and go to the final maturity. Studying and exploring the literary aestheticfeatures of America war novels in different period will help people understandAmerica and the world more deeply, urge the people to reflect and evaluate rationallywar and peace, human nature and humanism, fairness and justice, and destiny anddestination.