This interdisciplinary study investigates how alienation manifests in American literature
on the Vietnam War and Afrikaans literature on the war in Namibia/Angola (the so-called
Border War). After an historical contextualisation, the sociological branch of alienation
theory, which is based on the writings of Melvin Seeman, is discussed, and it is illustrated
how the six aspects of alienation, as identified by Seeman, manifest in several texts on
these wars. In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of the thesis, insights from
alienation theory are integrated with theories of historiography, trauma, masculinity, and
counterinsurgencies, all in an attempt to come to a better understanding of the texts
under consideration.
Despite literary theoryâs insistence that alienation is a feature of modernist and
postmodernist literature, and literature on these counterinsurgencies in particular, little
has been written on what alienation actually is. Seemanâs variant was chosen because it
is the most detailed and comprehensive treatment of alienation available, and although
published in 1959, Seemanâs notion of alienation continues to be relevant within
sociology. Seemanâs six aspects of alienation include powerlessness, meaninglessness,
normlessness, cultural estrangement, social isolation, and self-estrangement, and these
are used to discuss the literature on these two counterinsurgencies, highlighting how
these aspects of alienation manifest in a variety of literary texts. The line between
history and fiction is of course also an important boundary challenged by literature on
these wars, and therefore a section is included under meaninglessness that deals with
the writing of history and the role historical fiction plays in representing the past. Under
cultural estrangement, a section is also included on masculinity, because since the army
was often seen as offering a rite of passage, alienation manifests in this sense as well by
rejecting the cultural values of masculinity. A section is also included on the alienating
effects of trauma, because trauma is of course an important facet of literature on these
wars, and it is shown how alienation ties in with trauma through two texts in particular:
Larry Heinemannâs Pacoâs Story and Anthony Feinsteinâs Kopwond (released in English as
Battle Scarred). Lastly, the study discusses all six aspects of alienation in reference to
two of the seminal texts on these wars: Tim OâBrienâs If I die in a combat zone and
Alexander Strachanâs ân Wêreld sonder grense. In general, the thesis tries to come to terms with the complexities of these wars:
history, alienation, and identity are complex issues in these conflicts, and the
interpretation of literary texts can be done from an extensive variety of perspectives. It
is shown how alienation theory provides a useful prism for looking at these texts that
stem from two watershed conflicts that changed their societies irrevocably.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-08072014-154313 |
| Date | 07 August 2014 |
| Creators | Senekal, Burgert A |
| Contributors | Prof J Limon, Prof HP van Coller |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-08072014-154313/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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