The literary representation of identity and alienation in counterinsurgencies

[摘要] English: This interdisciplinary study investigates how alienation manifests in American literature on the Vietnam War and Afrikaans literature on the war in Namibia/Angola (the so-called Border War). After an historical contextualisation, the sociological branch of alienation theory, which is based on the writings of Melvin Seeman, is discussed, and it is illustrated how the six aspects of alienation, as identified by Seeman, manifest in several texts on these wars. In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of the thesis, insights from alienation theory are integrated with theories of historiography, trauma, masculinity, and counterinsurgencies, all in an attempt to come to a better understanding of the texts under consideration. Despite literary theory's insistence that alienation is a feature of modernist and postmodernist literature, and literature on these counterinsurgencies in particular, little has been written on what alienation actually is. Seeman's variant was chosen because it is the most detailed and comprehensive treatment of alienation available, and although published in 1959, Seeman's notion of alienation continues to be relevant within sociology. Seeman's six aspects of alienation include powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, cultural estrangement, social isolation, and self-estrangement, and these are used to discuss the literature on these two counterinsurgencies, highlighting how these aspects of alienation manifest in a variety of literary texts. The line between history and fiction is of course also an important boundary challenged by literature on these wars, and therefore a section is included under meaninglessness that deals with the writing of history and the role historical fiction plays in representing the past. Under cultural estrangement, a section is also included on masculinity, because since the army was often seen as offering a rite of passage, alienation manifests in this sense as well by rejecting the cultural values of masculinity. A section is also included on the alienating effects of trauma, because trauma is of course an important facet of literature on these wars, and it is shown how alienation ties in with trauma through two texts in particular: Larry Heinemann's Paco's Story and Anthony Feinstein's Kopwond (released in English as Battle Scarred). Lastly, the study discusses all six aspects of alienation in reference to two of the seminal texts on these wars: Tim O'Brien's If I die in a combat zone and Alexander Strachan's 'n Wêreld sonder grense. In general, the thesis tries to come to terms with the complexities of these wars: history, alienation, and identity are complex issues in these conflicts, and the interpretation of literary texts can be done from an extensive variety of perspectives. It is shown how alienation theory provides a useful prism for looking at these texts that stem from two watershed conflicts that changed their societies irrevocably.

[发布机构] University of the Free State