Voices and vietnam : a study of varying ideological perspectives in american fiction and film, 1975-1982

Author

Granetta Lyndon Richardson

Date of Award

5-1994

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Major Professor

Charles J. Maland

Abstract

In this dissertation the ideological perspectives in Vietnam combat fictions are studied through an examination of four distinct voices: the Believers in a Cause, the Voice of the Minority Combat Soldier, the Disillusioned Believers, and the Tricksters/Rejectors. Using the theories of M. M. Bakhtin, the dissertation explores the way heteroglossia allows Vietnam novelists and filmmakers to open up crucial debates about the relevance and significance of the dominant ideology (in this study defined as what Godfrey Hodgson has called the "ideology of consensus") and to critique its hegemony. Four novels and three feature films about Vietnam combat soldiers were selected for examination. The novels include Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato (1975), Charles Durden's No Bugles, No Drums,/i> (1976), Gustav Hasford's The Short-Timers (1979), and John M. Del Vecchio's The 13th Valley (1982). The films are Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Ted Post's Go Tell the Spartans (1978), and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). The dissertation examines how heteroglossia in these works gives rise to ambivalence and irresolution. And, in examining heteroglossia, it becomes evident that these Vietnam War fictions, appearing between the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the dedication of the Vietnam War Memorial in 1982, are despairing and disillusioned, tending, therefore, to support dissenting positions.