| The construct of American national character is traced from its 17th-century beginnings into the 20th century. "Standards" for measuring the national character are established with the tropes of mission, land, and other. Sources for this construct include historical, sociological, and cultural documents which concern themselves with national identity, national wars, and war novels. The historical and sociological texts consider the ways national character has been constructed in the various stages of America's formation and expansion. Special attention is given to how the construct of national character influences and is influenced by images of the American fighting man.;The tropes are applied to the war literature of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage; Joseph Hergesheimer's The Bright Shawl; select World War I novels: John Dos Passos' Three Soldiers, Ernest Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, and Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun; and select World War II novels: James Jones' From Here to Eternity, Harry Brown's A Walk in the Sun, John Horne Burns' The Gallery, Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s Slaughterhouse-Five. The readings of these novels and the application of the three tropes provide descriptions of the national character before Vietnam.;The "shattering" of this construct is studied in three major novels of those written in response to the Vietnam War (1959-1975): Norman Mailer's Why Are We in Vietnam?, Larry Heinemann's Paco's Story, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's The Healer's War. The "readings" of these novels reveal that the previous constructs of the American national character are incomplete and don't withstand the questionings of national character which the Vietnam novels engage in. The study's conclusion weighs the impact of the Vietnam literature on American literature, noting the loosening of language, the questioning of the master narrative, and an expanding awareness of what is necessary for a (re)construction of national character. |
