The U.S. Supported WWII

• After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, most Americans supported the United States entering into WWII.

• Americans also continued to support the U.S. during the entire war, and then they welcomed the soldiers with parties and fanfare upon their return to the U.S. after the war.

“Hawks vs. Doves”• However, this was not the case decades later when the U.S. went

to war in Vietnam.• In fact, war in Vietnam bred a degree of domestic conflict unseen

since the Civil War.• The American people were split into two groups: the so-called

hawks and doves – supporters and opponents of the war.

Vietnam = Part of the Cold War

• Why did the United States enter into the conflict in Vietnam?

• This conflict is actually linked to events that took place right after WWII.

• The U.S. emerged from the war as an economic and political powerhouse.

• However, the Soviet Union, who was actually one of our allies during WWII, challenged U.S. power.

• Soon after the war ended, the Soviet Union seized control of most of Eastern Europe.

• They also installed one-party Communist governments behind what Winston Churchill called an “iron curtain.”

Stop Communism From Spreading!

• With the Soviet Union’s development of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s, the ideological conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union hardened into a long and expensive arms race.

• During the Cold War, Americans were afraid of anything having to do with communism, and the U.S. wanted to stop the spread of communism into other countries such Korea and Vietnam.

• The U.S. first engaged in the Korean War to stop the spread of communism in Korea in the 1950s.

U.S. Intervenes in Vietnam

• Years later the United States intervened in South Vietnam to help that republic resist the Viet Cong – South Vietnamese Communist rebels – and the North Vietnamese army.

• The U.S. government wanted to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia.

• However, the Vietnamese soldiers fighting U.S. troops wanted an independent nation free of foreign interference.

Deaths Rise, Protests Begin• As the war dragged on and more U.S. soldiers died – approximately

58,000 in all – many Americans at home began to doubt the wisdom of continuing the U.S. presence in Vietnam.

• In the 1960s demonstrations against the government, both peaceful and violent, became commonplace.

• Indignant students, pacifists, and some returning Vietnam War veterans marched in the streets, calling for an end to the war.

Literature Changes• Literature during this time period

was very different from the literature that came out of WWII.

• World War II literature helped to make that war, later called the "good war," a defining moment in affirming America's democratic values and the nation's identity as a moral people.

• The literature of the Vietnam War would take American war literature down a starkly different path.

• The literature of the Vietnam era reflects the major conflicts that were going on within the United States.

War = Madness• In the works of many of the writers of

this time period, madness and war are combined.

• This is not because madness is a result of war, but because war is the result of madness.

• To some writers the madness of the war-torn world was an inescapable condition of modern life.

• To them, the only appropriate response was hard-edged laughter at life’s tragic ironies.

• The term gallows humor – ironic humor arising from an acknowledgment of the absurd or grotesque – was often used to describe the work of writers who flourished after World War II.

Fighting in Vietnam• During the Vietnam War, even though the American soldiers

were better equipped and better trained than the enemy, they fought in a foreign land they did not understand and for a cause that became increasingly unpopular at home.

• The Vietnamese Communists were skilled at guerilla warfare, using small armies in surprise raids.

Literature Explores the Vietnam War• The Vietnamese army’s knowledge of the land enabled them to

disappear whenever the U.S. forces attacked.

• These tactics often created a climate of frustration and fear among American soldiers.

• For this part of our unit, we will read four pieces of literature that deal with the troublesome issues plaguing the people who were involved in the longest war in American history.

Vietnam War Literature – Tim O’Brien –

• Tim O’Brien, who served 14 months as an infantryman during the war, is an author well known for his novels and short stories that deal with fighting in Vietnam.

• One of his short stories that we will read is called “Ambush.”

• “Ambush” presents one soldier’s response to the fear and confusion in Vietnam and the troubling memories that haunt him after the war.

• This story is taken from Tim O’Brien’s novel called The Things They Carried.

• This book, which was published in 1990, is based on O’Brien’s experiences in Vietnam.

The Things They Carried• The Things They Carried is a fictional memoir about the war and its human

effect.

• The book is made up of interconnected stories narrated by a character named Tim O’Brien, who, the author says, is not himself.

• The title story deals with the physical objects a soldier carries into battle, such as weapons and letters from home, as well as the intangible things, like fears and memories.

• We will read a second story from this book as our last soldier/survival story.

Vietnam War - Poetry• In addition to “Ambush” we will be reading two poems

that present strong personal images of the Vietnam War from two perspectives – that of an American combat soldier and that of a Vietnamese civilian.

• Both pieces convey the upheaval of the war and bring to life its frightening realities.

Vietnam War Poetry – “Camouflaging the Chimera”

• The first of these poems is called “Camouflaging the Chimera.”

• The word “chimera” in the title of the poem has several meanings.

• It is the name of a mythical fire-breathing monster, a composite of a lion, a goat, and a serpent.

• The word also refers to a plant created from a mixture of cells of different species.

• In addition, chimera can mean a fantastic or terrible creation of the imagination.

Vietnam War Poetry – “Deciding”• The title of the second “Deciding” refers to the difficult

situation the speaker of the poem finds herself in.• The speaker is a Vietnamese worker in an American office in

Saigon who must decide whether to stay or flee after the United States has withdrawn its troops and the fall of South Vietnam appears imminent.

• She fears how she will be treated by the Communist victors from North Vietnam.

Vietnam War Literature – “At the Justice Department”

• Another piece that we will read is a poem by Denise Levertov.

• The poem “At the Justice Department” was written in response to one of the demonstrations conducted by the New Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam.

• The group organized two demonstrations in the fall of 1969.

• The protests were, for the most part, peaceful; however, when the demonstration became violent towards the end of it, police used tear gas against the crowd.

• Levertov’s poem describes a participant’s account of this antiwar protest.

New Literary Movement Develops

• One of the words most commonly used to describe contemporary American culture is postmodern, a term that, like our age, is still in the process of being defined.

• Postmodernism sees contemporary culture as a change – a development or a departure – from modernism, the dominant movement in the arts from about 1890 – 1945.

• Postmodern writers of fiction allow for multiple meanings and multiple worlds in their works.

• Realistic and literal worlds, past worlds, and dreamlike metaphorical worlds may merge.

• Narrators and characters may tell different versions of a story, or a story may deliberately accommodate several valid interpretations.

Postmodernism

• The postmodernist asks, “Why choose only one version? Why limit ourselves?”

• Writers of our time often structure their works in a variety of nontraditional forms. They do not abide by conventional rules for shaping fiction.

• Some postmodern works are also intensely self-conscious.

• They comment on themselves, criticize themselves, take themselves apart, and encourage us to put them together again.

• The vitality of contemporary fiction lies in its cultural diversity, in its enthusiasm for blending fiction with nonfiction, and in its extraordinary sense of play.

• It also demonstrates a typically American ability to invigorate the old by means of the new.