The Writing Of The Vietnam War In Post-9/11 Era

Denis Johnson‘s Tree of Smoke(2007),winner of 2007 American National Book Award,has provoked wide reflections towards the Vietnam War in American literature in post-9/11 era.It is both historically significant in the reconstruction of the Vietnam War memory and contemporarily enlightening on the current international tension.At the same time,it succeeds in looking into the very core of American values,offering an insight into the clash of civilizations in post-9/11 era,and predicting the ultimate trend of cultural pluralism.Combined with interdisciplinary studies like cultural study,religion,history,international relation and so on,this thesis is constructed according to ?i?ek‘s violence theory,and employs narrative theory as an instrument of textual analysis,with an attempt to penetrate violence representation in the novel from three levels: physical violence,symbolic violence and systemic violence.The three layers of violence each differentiates with one another and reveals certain themes of imperialism,among which,physical violence and symbolic violence respectively unmasks the themes of militarism and exceptionalism,reflecting the means of imperial expansion-military aggression and cultural infiltration.Apart from the two forms of violence the U.S.empire generates to promote hegemony oversea,there is a fundamental form of violence within the state,which is systemic violence.It reveals the theme of imperialism.All in all,through the analysis of three levels of violence,the thesis manages to disclose the complexity of the imperial discourse in the U.S.military actions presented in Vietnam War novels,and unveil the ideological violence of the U.S.empire long existed from the Vietnam War to post-9/11 era.The thesis also concludes that,even though Johnson tries to lash on imperialism,he is confined to capitalist ideology due to his cultural background.