베트남전의 기억과 그 기억에의 저항: 바비 앤 메이슨의 『베트남에서(In Country)』 연구

Abstract

This paper analyzes In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason in order to illuminate the complex relationships between gender and the Vietnam War, the generational conflicts between the Vietnam War generation and post-Vietnam War generation, and the changes in the perception and evaluation of the war. As Susan Jeffords argued in Remasculinization of America, gender played a pivotal role in the Vietnam War. According to Jeffords, the war was a reflection of the US foreign policies aimed to remasculinize the US and the war was operated in gendered terms. While the majority of the Vietnam War narratives were written, reviewed, and read by men, thereby generating "in-house discourse" as one critic puts it, In Country, among some novels on the Vietnam War by women writers, directly deals with the ways a female protagonist learns, un-learns and remembers the Vietnam War. In In Country, the protagonist is portrayed to be born during the Vietnam war and her father died in the war. At the coming of age, the protagonist Sam sets out on a trip to Washington D.C. to be at the war memorial as an attempt to understand her late father. Via diverse episodes remembered by Vietnam War veterans and the protagonist along with representations of popular culture genres such as pop-songs and television programs, a large portion of which are remains or re-makings of the products of 1960s and 70s, the protagonist endeavors to comprehend the Vietnam War in her own way. The way the protagonist understands the war often betrays, resists and contends much advertised and repeated public discourses of the war, which can be summarized as 'advocation of the freedom and democracy in South-East Asia.' Marginal and minor voices of the socio-politically suppressed, including those of 'whining' veterans and social outcasts, contribute to resisting the sanctioned public discourses the US government continued to reproduce. The protagonist realizes that the public dicourse tells her little about the reality of Vietnam such as people's daily lives in Vietnam, the shape and color of its terrain, indigenous crops and birds in Vietnam. As much as the nature of the war she finds out contradicts the public discourses, the image of her late father she comes across becomes a sullied one. Contrary to the conventional image of a father, who often is the object of one's respect, Sam's father turns out to be an un-educated racist with little knowledge on the nature of the war. The protagonist represents the post Vietnam War generation, who attempts to properly remember the war, to overcome the wrongs of the past, and to envision a better future by learning lessons from the past.