Memory, trauma, and nationalism in novel representation

¶ … Duong Huong's novel entitled Novel without a Name tells the story of one young man's experience during the Vietnam War. In the United States, most people only know and understand the war from the perspective of the Americans. Similarly, citizens of the United States know and understand the First World War only through the perspective of narratives told from this country. Both Novel without a Name and Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front discuss how young men are forced to engage in battle because of the demands of their government. The governments make appeals to the citizens of their country in order to get them to fight and die for the goals of that government. One of the most potent ways that the government gets their young soldiers to perform is by appealing to the nationalism of its citizenry. Each of the mentioned novels uses the nationalism of the country's citizens and turns that sense of identity into a weapon.

There are two distinct forms of nationalism that can influence and affect the psychology of a country. The first was the desire of subjected or objectified people to gain independence. When a people feel that they have been oppressed by a bigger government, it is a common occurrence that these peoples will decide to revolt against their oppressive government in the attempt to gain autonomy. The second form of nationalism is the desire of an independent nation to attain power through domination of other countries.

The Vietnam War is discussed through the eyes of a young soldier named Quan. He is a member of the North Vietnamese army. The young man joined the army when he was only eighteen years old. Quan admits that the reason that he joined was because he became enamored of the glamour of the Communist Party and because he felt that this government's ideals were in earnest. As he descends further into the war and is faced with the commission of murder and the evasion of the enemy, he comes to rethink about his decision and the position of the government. Warfare, he comes to see, is not glamorous and the ideas that a person thought he was fighting for may lose their potency when confronted with violence and death.

Just as the government of relied on the nationalism of the people to get them to engage in warfare so did the government of Germany abuse the patriotism and national identity of its citizens. Germany in the time preceding World War I was a country that considered itself marginalized and in possession of limited power. Those who headed the government determined that the only way to turn this small country into a world power would be to engage in aggressive actions toward the rest of Europe. In order to get the people of Germany behind them, the government of Germany began a campaign of propaganda that would play on the German people's sense of nationalistic pride to commit acts of violence. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, author Erich Maria Remarque writes a story about the fallacy of patriotism. His protagonist heads out to fight in the First World War on the side of Germany, firmly indoctrinated by the idea that his duty is in the fight and that the Germans are morally right in their cause. He learns that what happens on the battlefield is nothing like what happens in the classroom. War is not government policy or which man is morally superior. Rather it is a small platoon of men who are trying to kill or be killed by another small platoon who is only a matter of yards away. Patriotism, according to Remarque is born at the fireside and dies on the battlefield.