| Since World War One, the antiwar novel has been the most significant part of American war fiction. Frequently cited by critics as exemplifying the best in war writing, these novels have strong thematic and stylistic connections. Written by some of this country's most famous authors, antiwar novels frequently have had commercial success as well as critical acclaim.;John Dos Passos's Three Soldiers (1921) can be considered the prototype for most American antiwar novels that have followed it. Even though writing styles have varied widely during the sixty years that followed it, the protest theme of Three Soldiers continues to serve as a model. Dos Passos protested war in Three Soldiers by presenting four thematic elements that subsequently have been included in virtually all twentieth century American antiwar novels: brutality, absurdity, dehumanization, and hypocrisy. Also established by Dos Passos's novel was the important condition that an antiwar book not conclude, implicitly or explicitly, that war had been necessary or successful. This feature also has been preserved in American antiwar works of this century.;The development of the American antiwar novel, during three successive time periods--each approximately twenty years in length--is outlined through discussions of representative novels from each period. Ten Post World War One novels are covered, including A Farewell to Arms, What Price Glory, Through the Wheat, Plumes, Johnny Got His Gun, The Enormous Room, and four others. Those discussed that are from the two decades following World War Two include The Naked and the Dead, From Here to Eternity, The Gallery, The War Lover, The Cannibal, and eight others. The third time period discussed includes novels based on World War Two and Vietnam. Twelve antiwar novels from this period are discussed. These include Catch-22, Slaughterhouse-Five, Going After Cacciato, Fail-Safe, Gravity's Rainbow, and six more. |
