I was dumbfounded today during our discussion of PTSD and its associations with warfare when Mr. Mitchell commented on how representations of the disorder are conspicuously absent from many depictions of WWII as compared to other grand conflicts like WWI or the Vietnam war. I had never really thought about it, given that I associate more with the film and literature that was created during my lifetime, but WWII didn't engage the topic of PTSD for a significant period after the end of the war.
I did a bit of research into how the conflict has been portrayed (in literature, theatre, and film, the latter being my greatest area of expertise) and was shocked to see how long it took for soldiers to be portrayed as anything but inhuman and unfeeling champions for truth and justice. There are always exceptions that hang on the periphery, but for the most part films and literature about WWII based themselves around heroic and steadfast figures, portrayed by people like John Wayne.
Compare this treatment to that of WWI and Vietnam. WWI is portrayed as a maddening experience wrought with emotional tortures in pieces such as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse", "Mrs. Dalloway", and "All Quiet on the Western Front". Even though PTSD wasn't fully understood at the time, these depictions are still able to capture a lot of what a soldier must endure. Vietnam is even more complex and nuanced in its portrayals, with films such as "The Deer Hunter", "Platoon", "Full Metal Jacket", and "Born on the Fourth of July" realistically and brutally depicting the horrors of combat and the debilitating effects of PTSD. We can see that film and literature had the potential to portray WWII realistically, but because of the rhetoric and heroic fantasy built around the war it was tacitly considered un-American to do so. When the Vietnam war emerged into the public mindset, Kurt Vonnegut and many other authors broke free from these restrictions and tried to show a truly realistic WWII soldier in their literature. Film, however, continued to lag behind reality. WWII films would still draw crowds and receive raving reviews, but if it was ever portrayed as a horror of human experience, those affected would be civilians or otherwise unrelated individuals. Even films like "Saving Private Ryan" which depict PTSD only do so with a untrained soldier tasked with cartography, preserving the other soldiers as steadfast and relentless patriots. It has only been in the past decade or so that film has been able to portray strong able-bodied individuals breaking and becoming emotionally crippled as a result of WWII, with characters such as Lynn "Buck" Compton in the fantastic miniseries "Band of Brothers".
Discussing these themes in class has opened my mind to whole new realms of thought about the progression and evolution of fiction and the effects of rhetoric on culture and the resulting delusion of historical reality. I would love to do more than the 20 minutes of research I did here to uncover things like if early realistic depictions of WWII era warfare never occured or have simply been forgotten, or why exactly there was and is such a refusal to believe WWII era soldiers were anything more than superheros that fought "the bad guys".
Friday, March 9, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Understanding Vonnegut and his feelings on war.
I found yesterday's class' discussion to be really interesting, not only because of the startling inaccuracies (and possible hidden agenda) in the supposed recorded history but also because of how I felt in reaction to learning of Slaughterhouse Five's origins.
I still defend the point that I made in class, that the exact number of victims at the firebombing of Dresden is irrelevant to what Slaughterhouse Five is trying to do. When you get down to the core of what this book is, it's about the horrors of war and the inevitability of terrible acts of hate and murder, not Dresden itself (although the example of Dresden does serve to disillusion naive readers who believed WWII to be a clear cut war of "the good guys" and "the bad guys").
I think in Vonnegut's mind, all death in war is pointless and wasteful, this being based on the author's early narration and insistence on discussing the horrors committed during WWII. Although this is the interpretation I tend to stick with, the inclusion of the tralfamadorians and the passive narration of "so it goes" seems to also give the possibility of a strange apathy from Vonnegut. It sometimes seems that Vonnegut is trying to teach the belief of real world death and war being ultimately meaningless. Both these ideas are thickly embedded in the book, seeming to cancel out one another. In the end, however, I continue to reach the first conclusion about Vonnegut's meaning, as he portrays himself feeling this way, whereas the apathetic mentality is portrayed through the character of Billy Pilgrim and the tralfamadorians, possibly being used as a way to explain the tortured and emotionally detached life of a person who has experienced terrible hardships.
I still defend the point that I made in class, that the exact number of victims at the firebombing of Dresden is irrelevant to what Slaughterhouse Five is trying to do. When you get down to the core of what this book is, it's about the horrors of war and the inevitability of terrible acts of hate and murder, not Dresden itself (although the example of Dresden does serve to disillusion naive readers who believed WWII to be a clear cut war of "the good guys" and "the bad guys").
I think in Vonnegut's mind, all death in war is pointless and wasteful, this being based on the author's early narration and insistence on discussing the horrors committed during WWII. Although this is the interpretation I tend to stick with, the inclusion of the tralfamadorians and the passive narration of "so it goes" seems to also give the possibility of a strange apathy from Vonnegut. It sometimes seems that Vonnegut is trying to teach the belief of real world death and war being ultimately meaningless. Both these ideas are thickly embedded in the book, seeming to cancel out one another. In the end, however, I continue to reach the first conclusion about Vonnegut's meaning, as he portrays himself feeling this way, whereas the apathetic mentality is portrayed through the character of Billy Pilgrim and the tralfamadorians, possibly being used as a way to explain the tortured and emotionally detached life of a person who has experienced terrible hardships.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Second Look at Slaughterhouse Five
It's interesting that of all the books in our class, this is the one I've read before. It's interesting because, unlike most books, nothing is really spoiled plot-wise by having read the book once. Vonnegut specifically designed the book to spoil most of everything in the first chapter, so essentially, the first time a person reads this book it will feel like the second time. I hope I'm making sense here.
The point I'm trying to get across is that I can't talk about my second reading of this book in the same way I could with a book like Ragtime or Mumbo Jumbo. This fact made me reconsider what it usually means to read a book a second time, and what is gained in the second reading.
In the first reading of a book, much of the focus of the reader is devoted to following plot-lines, character arcs, and story developments. Even when a reader is incredibly focused, there is an element of understanding about the novel and its characters that isn't achieved. The way to reach this new level of appreciation for the writing is either through writing papers (the quicker and more common academic tactic) or re-reading the text with your newly gained understanding of the developments of the story. Doing these things allows you to use hindsight to better understand how a character grew and changed. To quickly think of an analogy, reading a book for the first time is like riding a roller coaster; a thrill ride which can turn any which way, surprising you at every turn. Whereas reading a book for the second time is like viewing a roller coaster from above; you can see all the turns and twists coming, and can better understand how the ride functions as a whole.
The way Slaughterhouse-Five is different is that Vonnegut seems to intend for the reader to skip the first step entirely, pushing them directly into the realm of analysis, greatly de-emphasizing the importance of story development. He does this both in his spoiling of important plot elements early on and his use of the Tralfamadorian writing style. There is no tension involved in Billy Pilgrim's direct survival, because we know he dies much later in life from an assassin's lazer bolt. At the same time, the book is incredibly engaging, because the reader adapts to this style and focuses their energy trying to understand Billy's mental state and character development.
The way that Vonnegut does this means that my second reading of the text is still very similar to how I first read it. This does not however, result in the book being boring, as many simple story based books tend to be on the second read, because by the end of my first reading, I had formed many opinions about Pilgrim's character arc and how Vonnegut designed it as a writer and now, in my second reading, is my time to test how those theories hold up to direct comparison of the text. Vonnegut has found a way to make reading a book almost purely analysis and critical thinking from the very first to last time you pick it up.
The point I'm trying to get across is that I can't talk about my second reading of this book in the same way I could with a book like Ragtime or Mumbo Jumbo. This fact made me reconsider what it usually means to read a book a second time, and what is gained in the second reading.
In the first reading of a book, much of the focus of the reader is devoted to following plot-lines, character arcs, and story developments. Even when a reader is incredibly focused, there is an element of understanding about the novel and its characters that isn't achieved. The way to reach this new level of appreciation for the writing is either through writing papers (the quicker and more common academic tactic) or re-reading the text with your newly gained understanding of the developments of the story. Doing these things allows you to use hindsight to better understand how a character grew and changed. To quickly think of an analogy, reading a book for the first time is like riding a roller coaster; a thrill ride which can turn any which way, surprising you at every turn. Whereas reading a book for the second time is like viewing a roller coaster from above; you can see all the turns and twists coming, and can better understand how the ride functions as a whole.
The way Slaughterhouse-Five is different is that Vonnegut seems to intend for the reader to skip the first step entirely, pushing them directly into the realm of analysis, greatly de-emphasizing the importance of story development. He does this both in his spoiling of important plot elements early on and his use of the Tralfamadorian writing style. There is no tension involved in Billy Pilgrim's direct survival, because we know he dies much later in life from an assassin's lazer bolt. At the same time, the book is incredibly engaging, because the reader adapts to this style and focuses their energy trying to understand Billy's mental state and character development.
The way that Vonnegut does this means that my second reading of the text is still very similar to how I first read it. This does not however, result in the book being boring, as many simple story based books tend to be on the second read, because by the end of my first reading, I had formed many opinions about Pilgrim's character arc and how Vonnegut designed it as a writer and now, in my second reading, is my time to test how those theories hold up to direct comparison of the text. Vonnegut has found a way to make reading a book almost purely analysis and critical thinking from the very first to last time you pick it up.
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