Trauma In American Novels Of World War Ⅱ:1945-1951

The late1940s and the early1950s witnessed the publication of many notableAmerican novels of World War II. Wayne Miller argues that these novels fall intothree categories—the novels that follow in the World War I tradition; those thatpresent warfare as a brutal but normal human experience; and those that while muchless doctrinaire than their forerunners of the previous war, offer specific criticism ofthe American society. The three selected novels, The Young Lions, The Naked and theDead and From Here to Eternity, fall into the third category. Naturalism in the threeWorld War II novels arouses many critical interests. While many critics observe thethree novels have a negative view of American military and society, they do not paymuch attention to the trauma in these novels.The close reading of the three novels reveals that the novels do not merely focuson the warfare but the psychological injuries which are inflicted on the charactersfrom different backgrounds by American military and society. Writing about trauma intheir novels, the authors question the credos of the United States.The traumatic experience is caused not only by the traumatic event itself but bythe failure to articulate trauma. As the official historical account of the involvement ofthe United States in the Second World War deliberately conceals the facts of racialdiscrimination and other violations of civil rights, the authors feel obliged to revealthe suppressed history. The writing of trauma in the three selected texts provides thereaders an access to the concealed facts and serves as a counterforce to the falsifiedand monolithic history.Shaw’s The Young Lions equates a Jew’s traumatic experiences with the harshracial discrimination in the society as well as the military of the United States.Bearing witness to a Jew’s traumatic experiences in the U. S. military, the traumaticnarratives in The Young Lions challenge the official history of World War II and offera plausible feel of the experiences which may be impossible to access throughconventional historiography. Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead is characterized by the enlisted men’straumatic experience and the loss of identity. Martinez, the Mexican-Americansergeant, is afflicted by his loss of identity. On one hand, he tries to deny his identityas a Mexican which is associated with the affliction of failure and humiliation in thepre-war and wartime American society. On the other hand, he acknowledges that hecan never be a complete American although he is full of patriotic sentiments. ForMartinez, the harsh reality always interacts with the recurring memory of humiliation.Other members of the reconnaissance platoon are confronted with the crisis of identity,too. The disillusionment of the American Dream and the disparity between idealismand the corruption of American society traumatize Red, Hearn and Gallagher.In From Here to Eternity, Prewitt’s past is dominated by political and economicoppression. As totalitarianism in the U. S. military evokes Prewitt’s repressed memory,his attempt to heal trauma is inevitably thwarted by the corrupt institution. JamesJones consciously blurs the division line between the fictional life of Prewitt and hisown life. It is noteworthy that James Jones attempts to heal his own trauma throughself-invention in the semi-autobiographical novel.Raising the social and political problems in American society, the three AmericanWorld War II novels represent trauma as more a social phenomenon than the woundof psyche. Based on the examination of the trauma in the three World War II novels,together with a consideration of the historical context, this dissertation seeks toexplore the crucial link between social elements and the trauma, which is aggravatedby the war. It finally concludes that the traumatic experiences in the three novels arecaused by the inequity and injustice in American society.