A Study of The First Person Narratives By American Women on The Vietnam War

Abstract

A Study of The First Person Narratives by American Women on The Vietnam War As Donna M. Connolly writes, women and the feminine became another name for “enemy” in cultural representations of the Vietnam War. In addition, the weak nation, less powerful race, and less militant soldiers were often portrayed as women as well. Throughout the majority of Vietnam War representations, most of which are by male writers, women are objectified, marginalized and treated as “others.” The memoirs and autobiographies by women with first-hand experiences of the war, even though many of them admit that their experiences of the war are not neat and coherent ones, present good resources to reconsider the war in terms of gender. The first person narratives of the war by women commonly point out they were troubled by the language in the military and the social prejudices against them, both of which resulted in making them experience “split subjectivity.” However, despite the troubles they experienced, women cherished the Vietnam War experiences, for they provided them with a rare opportunity to travel abroad and a momentum for their maturity. Women’s first person narratives resist the official history constructed upon the exclusive male experiences. By providing episodes that do not agree with the existing discourses of the war, women’s narratives urge one to revise the official history of the war.