The Mind at War: Images of Women in Vietnam Novels by Combat Veterans

Abstract

One of the great tasks of feminist literary criticism has been the "revision" of literary works in the manner suggested by poet and critic Adrienne Rich: "the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction" (18). This essay is concerned with the re-vision of images of women in novels written by American combat veterans of the Vietnam War and an examination of the connection those images have with the author's process of healing from the trauma of combat. The combat veteran, unlike writers in most other genres, has a personal stake in the way his story turns out; it represents his own "working out" of the events he has experienced. Arthur Egendorf, a Vietnam veteran and a psychologist who works with veterans, explains in his book Healing from the War: "Retelling one's story is an ancient cure. . . . Retelling is likely to allow us to feel 'more human' afterward, for recapturing the past in a sensitive way, often through the process of mourning, enables us to set aside our fearful self-protectiveness" (69). The loss of the ability to empathize with or care deeply about other people is a theme in all novels by Vietnam veterans. The conditions of combat demand that the soldier renounce empathy in order to survive. In warrior culture, the denial of humanity becomes a strength. But the line between soldier and sadist is easily crossed: