War Heroes In The Consumer Society: A Study Of Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

This thesis is intended to explore the image of war heroes in the American writer Ben Fountain's novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk(2012)by adopting combined perspectives of consumer society,celebrity studies and related theories of masculinity studies.Based on an interpretation of the Bravos' experiences in this novel,this thesis attempts to explore the living conditions of war heroes influenced by mass media and consumerism,as well as to investigate the characters' resistance and salvation in the dilemma,aiming to reveal the uniqueness of the contemporary war heroes.Firstly,this thesis focuses the role that mass media play in producing the symbol of war heroes as represented in this novel.It analyzes the encoding and simulating mechanisms in the novel through which the media-producers in the novel transform the Bravos into war heroes either as a way to justify the Iraq War or as a remedy for the masculinity crisis at that time.Secondly,this thesis investigates the predicaments the Bravos are faced with when consumed as commodity through the lens of celebrity studies,revealing the mechanism in the commodification process from the aspects of politicians and citizens and also weighing the lurking dangers underlying the process in which the war heroes are victimized either as scapegoats or as strangers at home.Finally,this thesis examines the strategies of resistance that the Bravos have made to achieve a possible salvation,illustrating that the Bravos' maneuvers of joking and daydreaming function to resist the cruelty of war and that Bravos' spiritual salvation through religious quest and bond of brotherhood suggests Fountain's hope for a peaceful world.In conclusion,this thesis argues that in this novel Fountain tries to expose the fictionality of contemporary war heroes and the deceptive nature of the Iraq War,and to appeal to a rethinking of war: there is never a hero in the real war.