Common Themes in the American World War II Novel

Abstract

The idea of investigating the World War II novel first presented itself to me when I was on duty as an active member of the Armed Forces during the Korean Police Action. I read what was being written about the Korean conflict and began to wonder what had been written about World War II. Different questions shaped themselves in my mind. Did the authors give an accurate picture of the war? Was their writing in the nature of a crusade? Was there a unifying factor that united all the World War II works? Did these writings about a war that spread over the globe and involved millions of uniformed peoples have any theme or method, any hates or loves in common? I started to gather material tentatively for a bibliography on the complete topic of World War II Novels. One of the first articles that I encountered was written for the New York Times Book Review by David Dempsy. In this article, he raised many of the same questions about which I had been wondering. Do the authors, as one publisher claims for his book, 'take the reader into the mind of the protagonist and show us what his generation is thinking about the war and the relation to the world afterwards?' Do they capture the inarticulate shades of meaning which give wings to the soldier's passion, words to his anger, and a soul to his hatred? Have they discovered that which makes war one thing to the soldier and another to the civilian? …There are other questions, too , which will help determine the final verdict on our war literature. Shall our novels glorify the fighting man, or picture the spiritual decay, frustration and self-pity which take their toll just as brutally as enemy bullets? Is the truth of battle in its raw agony, or its self-sacrifice, teamwork, and love Which men find there for each other? Is the G. I. a fighting ambassador of democracy, or an ideological dolt? Do men hate war, or look upon it as an adventure? Was it worth while or just another mockery in man's search for freedom? Because of the nature of my questions and the queries of Mr. Dempsy, I decided that the answers, if there could be answers, would have to be manifested in the form of themes, major and minor, that could be found in the novels--that is to say, subjects present in such quantities and so sufficiently articulated as to indicate the author's important concern with them. So, I undertook an investigation of the American World War II Novel. I hoped to find a common theme or themes in the works which I examined. I did find the common themes. The manner in which this was accomplished is described in the following pages. A definition of the problems presented and my method of attacking them will be found in the introduction.