The Representation of Trauma in Selected American Vietnam War Fiction

Abstract

The thesis analyses the representation of trauma in selected works of American Vietnam War fiction using Joshua Pederson's literary trauma framework. It examines Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, Larry Heinemann's Close Quarters, and Gustav Hasford's The Short-Timers, while situating Pederson's approach within trauma studies and placing the selected texts in the context of American Vietnam War literature. The thesis shows that these texts do not present trauma as fully unspeakable, but render it through specific textual and narrative choices that produce different meanings in each work.