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Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2008 im Fachbereich Didaktik für das Fach Englisch - Literatur, Werke, Note: 2,0, Philipps-Universität Marburg (Amerikanistik), Veranstaltung: American War Literature, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: 1. Introduction1.1 Topic statementMichael Herr’s Dispatches and Tim O’Brien’s The Things they carried (I will use theabbreviation Things) are two well-known examples of Vietnam War Literature. Thingsapproaches the Vietnam War as 'a work of fiction'. The author states in the beginning ofhis book: 'Except for a few details regarding the author’s own life, all the incidents, namesand characters are imaginary'. Critics refer Things to Postmodernism.Dispatches, however, is not fiction: Michael Herr covered the war for 2 years (1967-69)for the Esquire magazine and in 1978, the year of the publication, Dispatches wasnominated for the National Book Award for nonfiction (Bonn 28). The critics labelDispatches as New Journalism:'Michael Herr’s Dispatches is the work of a war correspondent, but it is not journalism in theordinary sense of the word, i.e. an objective, detached reporting of the 'facts'. Instead it is awork of the so-called New Journalism, a hybrid form that, in typical postmodern fashion, blurstraditional genre distinctions. (...) The New Journalism abandons all pretense of impersonalobjectivity instead an intense, substituting subjectivity that (...) also employs such devices offiction as characterization, flashbacks and interior monologue' (Carpenter 36/37).This term paper deals with the depiction of the Vietnam War in Dispatches and Things,with a special focus on the depiction of violence and the everyday life of the soldiers.Because of the fact that the books are different in style and narrative transmission, I willput briefly some emphasis on those aspects in the beginning.1.2 Thesis statementBoth writers depict the war without moral purposes, showing as well the negative featuresof the war (death, terror, fear, brut
