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World War II, described by Studs Terkel as the “Good War,” exceeds all prior boundaries and expectations of war. The scope of World War II generates an almost unfathomable, pervasive emphasis on the relationship between “thought” and experience in the narratives chronicling the experience of war. James Dawes observes that artists reflect on this oppressive pervasiveness through a literary style equal to the task of witnessing the unbounded and unprecedented events of World War II (157). The aftermath of the trauma of World War II—the mass genocide of the Holocaust combined with the mass atomic decimation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima—introduces a set of tragic circumstances into the cultural fabric. The trauma of World War II operates on a scale that encompasses an unimaginable subjectivity— war simply pervades all perceptions of experiences—there is no outside war and there is no inside war. There simply is war. The question then arises as how do writers create narrative subjects in a period of total trauma and war.{{efn|This question differs from Fredric Jameson’s view of narratives as socially symbolic acts in his The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act in that the question of narrative subjectivity is focused on the manner in which trauma impinges on the narrative of the text. However, the question still reflects Jameson’s desire to link narrative evolution with social change in the culture.}}
World War II, described by Studs Terkel as the “Good War,” exceeds all prior boundaries and expectations of war. The scope of World War II generates an almost unfathomable, pervasive emphasis on the relationship between “thought” and experience in the narratives chronicling the experience of war. James Dawes observes that artists reflect on this oppressive pervasiveness through a literary style equal to the task of witnessing the unbounded and unprecedented events of World War II (157). The aftermath of the trauma of World War II—the mass genocide of the Holocaust combined with the mass atomic decimation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima—introduces a set of tragic circumstances into the cultural fabric. The trauma of World War II operates on a scale that encompasses an unimaginable subjectivity— war simply pervades all perceptions of experiences—there is no outside war and there is no inside war. There simply is war. The question then arises as how do writers create narrative subjects in a period of total trauma and war.{{efn|This question differs from Fredric Jameson’s view of narratives as socially symbolic acts in his The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act in that the question of narrative subjectivity is focused on the manner in which trauma impinges on the narrative of the text. However, the question still reflects Jameson’s desire to link narrative evolution with social change in the culture.}}


The question posed at the beginning of this essay is a critical one—how might a body of literature deal with subjects who are speaking from the “abject” position of trauma. The experience of trauma operates as a complex play between knowing and not knowing that occurs in reaction to a breach in the mind’s experience of time, self, and the world. The awareness experienced in relation to trauma is abject (see Kristeva’s discussion of the abject). Modern and contemporary narratives embody the trauma and traumatic experiences of war through the treatment of an experience that cannot occur within normal subjective or objective narrative understandings or expressions of understanding. The narratives engage a structure that differs from previous narrative structures’ reliance and adherence to the myth of stable subjectivity and objectivity. In this engagement, the narratives draw on the previously silenced and abjected voice of trauma to generate a different narrative presence in the fiction following war. The fiction of war involves the placing of narrative authority in a voice of trauma.In giving voice to the trauma of war in the narratives, war fictions engage a previously silenced portion that allows the presentation of a reconstruction of an interior experience of trauma and reveals a necessary component of war. In this narrative reconstruction, the war narratives of trauma create a necessary counter-critique to the hegemonic war narratives that Paul Fussell in Wartime Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War argues have turned the experiences of trauma in World War II into sanitized, Norman Rockwell-ized narratives of war (267).
The question posed at the beginning of this essay is a critical one—how might a body of literature deal with subjects who are speaking from the “abject” position of trauma. The experience of trauma operates as a complex play between knowing and not knowing that occurs in reaction to a breach in the mind’s experience of time, self, and the world. The awareness experienced in relation to trauma is abject (see Kristeva’s discussion of the abject). Modern and contemporary narratives embody the trauma and traumatic experiences of war through the treatment of an experience that cannot occur within normal subjective or objective narrative understandings or expressions of understanding. The narratives engage a structure that differs from previous narrative structures’ reliance and adherence to the myth of stable subjectivity and objectivity. In this engagement, the narratives draw on the previously silenced and abjected voice of trauma to generate a different narrative presence in the fiction following war. The fiction of war involves the placing of narrative authority in a voice of trauma.{{efn| The placement occurs in American war fiction beginning with Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and Private Fleming.}} In giving voice to the trauma of war in the narratives, war fictions engage a previously silenced portion that allows the presentation of a reconstruction of an interior experience of trauma and reveals a necessary component of war. In this narrative reconstruction, the war narratives of trauma create a necessary counter-critique to the hegemonic war narratives{{efn|Notions of traumatic war remembrance in Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees and Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead offer a component and link to the influence of the trauma of war on modern fiction. Elaine Scarry notes that“without memory, our awareness would be confined to an eternal present and our lives would be virtually devoid of meaning” (1). In this context, Mailer’s early characters appearing in his first novel and Hemingway’s later characters like Cantwell experience remembrance in a different fashion than the earlier characters in American fiction. The act of remembrance operates as a method for attempting to understand the interior self in reference to the exterior world. The memory of World War I operates similarly as it lies like a palism past beneath the surface of modern American fiction. The desire to locate meaning through an attempted recollection of past traumas echoes from the first international trauma, World War I. The post-World War I literature seeks to explore understanding through the remembrance of an exterior world fraught with trauma.}} that Paul Fussell in Wartime Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War argues have turned the experiences of trauma in World War II into sanitized, Norman Rockwell-ized narratives of war (267).


{{pg| 315 | 316}}
{{pg| 315 | 316}}
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== HEMINGWAY AND MAILER: TRAUMA’S TREATMENT IN PRESENTING WWII ==
== HEMINGWAY AND MAILER: TRAUMA’S TREATMENT IN PRESENTING WWII ==


Ernest Hemingway’s ''''Across the River and into the Trees'' (1957)and Norman Mailer’s ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1948) illustrate necessary components and adaptations of the exploration of the narrative engagement of the traumas of war into and onto the structures of fiction. Carlos Baker observes that Hemingway’s ARIT projects an “atmosphere” that “was darkened by a strange psychological malaise, as if Ernest were using the pages of his novel as the equivalent of a psychiatrist’s couch” (477). While Baker—like many Hemingway scholars— is keen to link Hemingway’s second-to-last novel to the author’s personal experiences, Hemingway’s novel does not exist merely as an autobiographical account of trauma. Instead, Hemingway’s oft-dismissed novel captures the sentiment of a culture affected by the trauma of war in the work’s evolved narrative structure. Baker is partially correct in his observations; however, the atmosphere of the novel is not merely darkened by Hemingway’s personal malaise, so much as the novel presents the dark malaise of a culture attempting to reconcile narratives that speak from the abject position of trauma.
Ernest Hemingway’s ''''Across the River and into the Trees'' (1957){{efn|. Hemingway’s title selection for the work references his desire to explore the effects of war and trauma. The title of the work is a paraphrase of the last words of Civil War Leader Stonewall Jackson,“Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees” (Cooke 485). Hemingway’s paraphrase removes the communal “us” and the restorative “rest.” As such, the title highlights a different subjectivity from Jackson: a subjectivity that in Hemingway does not involve a “you” or an “I.” Instead, this narrative speaks not from the objective you or the subjective I but instead from the space of the abjective.}} and Norman Mailer’s ''The Naked and the Dead'' (1948) illustrate necessary components and adaptations of the exploration of the narrative engagement of the traumas of war into and onto the structures of fiction. Carlos Baker observes that Hemingway’s ARIT projects an “atmosphere” that “was darkened by a strange psychological malaise, as if Ernest were using the pages of his novel as the equivalent of a psychiatrist’s couch” (477). While Baker—like many Hemingway scholars— is keen to link Hemingway’s second-to-last novel to the author’s personal experiences, Hemingway’s novel does not exist merely as an autobiographical account of trauma. Instead, Hemingway’s oft-dismissed novel captures the sentiment of a culture affected by the trauma of war in the work’s evolved narrative structure. Baker is partially correct in his observations; however, the atmosphere of the novel is not merely darkened by Hemingway’s personal malaise, so much as the novel presents the dark malaise of a culture attempting to reconcile narratives that speak from the abject position of trauma.


Mailer’s ''NAD'' is the author’s first novel, and the reviews—unlike the reviews for Hemingway’s second-to-last-novel ''ARIT''—refer to Mailer’s novel as successful at its attempt of providing commentary on the war; in fact, reviewers deemed it “the best novel yet about World War II.” Mailer’s work captures the experiences of war in a non-romantic fashion with its focus on the disunity surrounding the trauma of war in the structure of the narrative. The narrative disunity captured and implemented in the structure of both Mailer’s and Hemingway’s WW II novels involve a point of view that differs from the prior structures of war fiction. In the aftermath of the Second World War, American fiction—illustrated in ''ARIT'' and ''NAD''—engages a different narrative point of view involving abjection and drawing on the trauma of war to generate a different structure of narrative.
Mailer’s ''NAD'' is the author’s first novel, and the reviews—unlike the reviews for Hemingway’s second-to-last-novel ''ARIT''—refer to Mailer’s novel as successful at its attempt of providing commentary on the war; in fact, reviewers deemed it “the best novel yet about World War II.” Mailer’s work captures the experiences of war in a non-romantic fashion with its focus on the disunity surrounding the trauma of war in the structure of the narrative. The narrative disunity captured and implemented in the structure of both Mailer’s and Hemingway’s WW II novels involve a point of view that differs from the prior structures of war fiction. In the aftermath of the Second World War, American fiction—illustrated in ''ARIT'' and ''NAD''—engages a different narrative point of view involving abjection and drawing on the trauma of war to generate a different structure of narrative.
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{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1|date=1990 |title=New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway|location=Durnham |editor-last= Benson|editor-first= Jackson J.|publisher=Duke UP|pages= 1-16 |ref=harv}}
{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1|date=1990 |title=New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway|location=Durnham |editor-last= Benson|editor-first= Jackson J.|publisher=Duke UP|pages= 1-16 |ref=harv}}


{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1|date=1967 |title= Ernest Hemingway, Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades |location=New York |editor-last= White|editor-first= William|  publisher=Scribner |ref=harv}}
{{cite book |last=Hemingway |first=Ernest |author-mask=1|date=1967 |title= By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades |location=New York |editor-last= White|editor-first= William|  publisher=Scribner |ref=harv}}


{{cite book| last = Breit| first = Harvey|author-mask=1| title = Talk With Mr. Hemingway| contribution = Interview| work = Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference| editor-first = Robert| editor-last = Trogdon| publisher = Carroll and Graf Publishers| location = New York| date = 1999| pages = 273–274| work = The New York Times Book Review| date = 1950-09-17| pages = 14}}
{{cite book| last = Breit| first = Harvey|author-mask=1| title = Talk With Mr. Hemingway| contribution = Interview| work = Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference| editor-first = Robert| editor-last = Trogdon| publisher = Carroll and Graf Publishers| location = New York| date = 1999| pages = 273–274| work = The New York Times Book Review| date = 1950-09-17| pages = 14}}
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