(De)construction of American Masculinity Through Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country

Year 2020, Issue: 53, 137 - 155, 01.05.2020

İdil Didem Keskiner

Abstract

This article examines Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country (1985)
to show how the memorialization of the Vietnam War deconstructs
the conventional image of the American war hero and his masculinity
through the coming of age story of Samantha Hughes. While
demonstrating how disruptive normative gender roles are in characters’
daily lives, initiated through Samantha’s passage to adulthood and her
search for a father figure in the novel, Mason also shows how Vietnam
destroyed the heroic soldier image in national consciousness and
shook the noble cause of American exceptionalism. Through a trip to
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the book, this article argues that in
the search for identity, the protagonist Samantha questions both the
morality of the Vietnam War and the traditional masculine attitudes
of American men. Hence, the trip to the Memorial initiates a healing
process as well as a confrontation of the emasculated American hero
who did not feel appreciated and honored by the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial, which became one of the most controversial historical
memorializations of war in the United States.

Keywords

Vietnam War, Masculinity, Memorialization, In Country, Bobbie Ann Mason, Vietnam Veterans Memorial

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