Masculinity in Vietnam War Narratives: A Critical Study of Fiction, Films and Nonfiction Writings »

Brenda M. Boyle is an assistant professor of English and director of the Writing Center at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

Occurring alongside the Women's Rights, Gay Rights, Civil Rights, and other identity movements of the 1960s, the Vietnam War was part of an era that rescripted gender and other social identity roles for many, if not most, Americans. This book examines the ways in which the war and its accompanying movements greatly altered traditional American conceptions of masculinity, as reflected in discourses ranging from fictional narratives to memoirs, films, and military recruiting advertisements. Analysis of two canonical fiction texts—John Del Vecchio's The 13th Valley and Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country—illustrates the interrelatedness of race, sexuality, disability and masculinity, an approach appearing in no other book-length study. The text illustrates how, decades later, the masculine anxieties of the Vietnam era persist.

Introduction The new man dance discourse 3

1 "Don't mean nothin' " : race in the production of masculinities 23

2 The Nam syndrome : improper sexuality, improper gender 59

3 Men out of mind : disabilities in Vietnam war stories 100

4 A litmus test for masculinity : the Vietnam War at the turn of the twenty-first century 144

Chapter notes 165

Works cited 183

Index 197