Multi-communicative Purposes Of American Vietnam War Veteran's Narrative

Vietnam War is the longest-last war in U.S. History which gets the U.S. into a quagmire. However, the losing war lasting for 20 years does not completely end with the withdrawal of U.S. troop. Vietnam War veterans bring the nightmares back home. The shadow of war continues to loom over the lives of Americans and imposes great shock and impact to American society, economy and culture, especially for American people's psychology and spirit. The war has broken the myths which American people are proud of, and promotes American people to reconsider their cultural traditions. During the process, a large number of Vietnam fictions burst out. Nightmares, insomnia, feelings of guilt related with Vietnam War torment veterans and bring endless pain to their families, which is also a common theme in Vietnam veterans' literary works. Larry Heinemann is one of the representative figures of this group, who have uttered unique voices in American literature for this experience.The present thesis selects Heinemann's Paco's Story as a case study. Heinemann has created all together 3 novels and a memoir, including Close Quarters, Paco's Story, Cooler by the Lake and memoir Black Virgin Mountain. Among these works, Paco's Story (1986) has won the National Book Award that year. It is about Paco, the only survivor of 93 soldiers in the company who comes back home from Vietnam War battlefield. He is haunted by other 92 comrades' ghost souls and is treated as an eccentric by town residents. He feels it difficult to find the meaning of life and finally has to be on the tramp continually. Since its publication, the novel has aroused different responses in the field of criticism. People make criticism mainly from the perspectives of stylistic strategies, ethics of representation and gender discourse. Based on the previous researches, the thesis combines narratology criticism and trauma theory together, considers Larry Heinemann's own Vietnam War experiences and historical context and reveals the complexity that the narrative works represent on war, violence, race and gender. In the text the implied author tries to convey multiple communicative purposes through the employment of specific narrative mode, which is what the thesis concerns and explores. There are five chapters in the thesis, among which chapter two to four are the main body.Chapter one is the introduction. It generalizes the object of the thesis, previous researches on Paco's Story at home and abroad, as well as the significance, methodology, aims and the framework of the study.Chapter two focuses on character's traumatization. This chapter attempts to reveal how the character is presented as a traumatized character and how the traumatization is revealed through three ways of traumatic memories, repeated images and detailed descriptions, and during the process of revelation, what communicative purposes the implied author intends to convey.Chapter three focuses on multiple narrative voices in the novel. The thesis categorizes different voices into three levels from outside to inside. The extradiegetic narrator in the outermost level is the ghost narrator, lying in the second level is the intradiegetic narrator including Paco and other three representative veterans, and the third level which is also called hypodiegetic level is narrated by a silent voice——female character Cathy's diary.Voices from three levels respectively embody various communicative purposes.Chapter four concerns about Vietnam male veteran's focalization. This part integrates the choice of focalization mode with gender and race discourse; reveals the complexity of gender and race discourse which is implied in text's dynamic communication through the implied author's control on different focalization.Chapter Five is the conclusion. After summarizing what is discussed in each chapter, the thesis points out that the variability and complexity of the multiple communicative purposes in the narrative text are originated from the real author's complex and multiple identities. Finally significance of the research on American Vietnam War veteran's narrative is exemplified.