Historical Trauma in Norman Mailer’s Why Are We in Vietnam
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Department of English
Abstract
Norman Mailer’s Why Are We in Vietnam?examine’s America’s ‘delivery’ of
civilization where Mailer draws a dread parallel between the Vietnam war and the
Alaskan safari. America went to Vietnam to ‘deliver’ civilization to the ‘uncivilized’
Vietnamese but ended up in the ‘killings’ of innocent people. America’s discourse of
civilization thus, became a tool of violence and exercising power up on the innocent
Vietnamese citizens.
The characters of this novel go to Vietnam from America in order to civilize the
innocent Vietnamese to forget their terrible and dreadful past and search for a spiritual
solace, but their suffering does not get over, cannot get relief from suffering and then
they are beset with their traumatic experiences.
This present research on Why Are We in Vietnam?by Norman Mailer attempts to
show a vivid portrayal of traumatic experience of modern American life triggered by the
violent act of American’s in the Alaskan Brooks Range through the means of characters
deteriorated traumatic condition. This novel identifies war and its destruction and
frustrated American life where spirituality is defeated in surge of the materialism leading
toward the traumatic dread. Here, Mailer portrays and explores the doomed way of
human psyche and the dark side of human life which is reflected in the form of flash
backs, nightmares and other repeated phenomena.