摘 要

朗·科维克是一名越战老兵，也是一位和平使者，他在越战前线战斗时受伤，导致胸部以下的身体瘫痪。在他的回忆录《生于七月四日》中，他诚恳而平实地讲述了他的挣扎和斗争，并揭示了越战期间美国政府的虚情假意。

本文着重分析回忆录中反映的美国意识形态和科维克的战后创伤。本文由四章组成。第一章将大致介绍越南战争的背景和相关文学作品的研究现状以及《生于七月四日》的主要内容。第二章是对回忆录中所揭示的美国意识形态的分析。回忆录中的例子将用于讨论和验证。论文的第三部分将基于科维克的创伤分析，并深入思考像科维克这样的士兵对越战的态度转变，以及对战争的反思。最后一章总结科维克的回忆录并指出其在美国越南战争文学中的重要性。

关键词：《生于七月四日》；越战；意识形态；战后创伤

Abstract

Ron Kovic is a Vietnam war veteran and a peace activist, who got paralyzed from the chest down when he fought in the front line of the Vietnam War. His memoir Born on the Fourth of July gives us an honest and unrefined account of his struggle and reveals the hypocrisy of the American government during the Vietnam War.

This paper focuses on analyzing the American ideology and post-war trauma of Ron Kovic reflected in his memoir. The paper consists of four chapters. The first chapter introduces the background of the Vietnam War, literature review, Ron Kovic and the content of his memoir. The second chapter is the analysis on the American ideology revealed in the memoir. Examples in the memoir would be picked up to discuss the implications of the topic. The third chapter analyzes trauma and thinks deeply about the change of attitude of soldiers like Kovic towards the Vietnam war, and Kovic’s introspection of the war. The final chapter sums up the paper and points out that Kovic’s memoir is an important part of the American Vietnam War literature.

Key words: Born on the Fourth of July, the Vietnam War, ideology, post-war trauma

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Ron Kovic and Born on the Fourth of July 1

1.2 Literature Review 2

1.3 Background of the Vietnam War 3

2 American Ideology in the Memoir 5

2.1 Setting: The Vietnam War 5

2.2 Representations of the American Ideology 6

2.2.1 Heroism and triumphalism 6

2.2.2 Patriotic militarized masculinity 9

2.2.3 Anti-Communism 10

3 Trauma by the Vietnam War 12

3.1 Trauma and the Influences 12

3.1.1 Physical disabilities 12

3.1.2 Mental trauma 13

3.2 Introspection of the War 15

3.2.1 Kovic’s change of attitudes towards the Vietnam War 15

3.2.2 American people’s call for peace 17

4 Conclusion 19

References 20

Acknowledgements 21

American Ideology and Trauma by the Vietnam War in Born on the Fourth of July

1 Introduction

1.1 Ron Kovic and Born on the Fourth of July

Ronald Lawrence Kovic, born on July 4, 1946, is an American anti-war activist, writer, and former United States Marine Corps sergeant. He was wounded and paralyzed in the Vietnam War. His parents both served honorably in the United States Navy during World War II, so he thought it a glory to join the army. He is best known as the author of his 1976 memoir Born on the Fourth of July.

Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” Inaugural Address in January 1961 (Moss, 1994) and after Kennedy's death in November 1963, Kovic joined the United States Marine Corps after high school in September 1964. Kovic volunteered to serve in Vietnam twice, and it was during his second tour of duty in Vietnam that he killed a comrade in arms and got shot by NVA soldiers, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down.

Before the end of the war in Vietnam was declared on April 30, 1975, Kovic became one of the best-known peace activists among the Vietnam veterans, and was arrested 12 times for political protesting. In 1974, Kovic led a group of disabled Vietnam War veterans in wheelchairs on a 17-day hunger strike, demanding better treatment for those returned veterans. Kovic took part in several anti-war demonstrations. Now, he is still alive and he is always an outspoken peace activist.

According to Ron Kovic, he wrote Born on the Fourth of July in the fall of 1974 in one month, three weeks and two days. “It was like an explosion, a dam bursting, everything flowed beautifully, just kept pouring out, almost effortlessly, passionately, desperately. I worked with an intensity and fury as if it was my last will and testament, and in many ways I felt it was” (Kovic, 2005:2).

Born on the Fourth of July tells the story of Kovic's life growing up in Massapequa, New York, his joining the United States Marine Corps right out of high school, going to Vietnam for two tours of duty, getting shot, finding himself paralyzed and in need of a wheelchair, and eventually starting a new life as a peace activist. The memoir was adapted into a film of the same name and it won two medals of the Academy Award in 1990.

1.2 Literature Review

Novel is the most important literary genre in American Vietnam War literature, thus most scholars mainly focus on interpreting those influential and classic novels of the Vietnam War. Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone, called one of the one hundred best English-language novels, Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien, and Paco’s Story by Larry Heinemann, the National Book Award winner in 1987, are the most frequently discussed by Chinese scholars. But few scholars are familiar with the memoirs of the Vietnam War. Professor Hu Yamin has some new and profound insights into the study of Vietnam War memoirs, which can be reflected in her articles like Vietnam War: From Imagination to Disillusionment and The Image of the Vietnamese in the Vietnam War Literature. (Wang amp; Gan, 2006) But, Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic has rarely been touched upon so far. A few scholars have discussed the nature of the war, the relationship between personal experience and the Vietnam War, and heroism in the book, but they have seldom studied the American ideology in the memoir.

This paper mainly focuses on analyzing the gist of Ron Kovic’s memoir, Born on the Fourth of July, in the way of unearthing the ideology of the USA, along with the impact and trauma on the country brought about by the final disillusionment, namely America’s defeat of the war. The paper aims to rethink profoundly about American ideology and the post-war trauma related to the Vietnam War in Born on the Fourth of July.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is the most often discussed topic in Vietnam War literature, and it is the common theme of many relevant works. As a Vietnam war witness and participant, Ron Kovic is the representative of American veterans in the Vietnam war. He experienced the ideological infiltration of the American federal government before the war, where the Vietnam War was advocated as the glorious and righteous act, and he went through a hard time after the war, tortured by the feeling of guilt, physical disabilities and disappointment about the American government. In his memoir, the hegemonic discourse revealing the ideology and political status at that time is the great point for study. Kovic’s own mind experience represents the change of American soldiers’ attitude towards the Vietnam war. Therefore, studying the ideological infiltration and post-war trauma in the memoir is an effective point of understanding the Vietnam War.

1.3 Background of the Vietnam War

In terms of the background of the Vietnam War, there are two fundamental reasons. One is the international political setup formed after World War II, which included two camps--the capitalist camp led by the United States and the communist camp led by the Soviet Union, and they launched the Cold War against each other. The other one is the domestic political situation of Vietnam., namely Vietnam was split up into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, respectively known as the "Republic of Vietnam" and the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam".

Although it is historically inevitable that North Vietnam would eventually overthrow the dictatorship of the South Vietnamese government, but the Vietnam War was led up by the South Vietnamese government at the beginning and it launched a campaign with the support of the United States to massacre members of the North Vietnamese Communist Party. Due to the continual US interference in the internal affairs of Vietnam, especially its military attacks on North Vietnam as an accomplice of South Vietnam, the North Vietnamese government began the counterattack. North Vietnam hence attacked many American military bases in Vietnam, which provided the USA a perfect excuse to send troops to Vietnam. The United States claimed to its people at home that it was North Vietnam that had launched the offensive first, but the support for South Vietnam was actually to prevent the Vietnamese communist camp from expanding and it would be a big threat to America’s own interests.

It was because of this intention that the United States helped the South Vietnamese government start the anti-Communist campaign in order to weaken and eliminate communist forces in North Vietnam. However, the United States of America did not realize that the unpopular autocratic government of South Vietnam could only end up with disfavor and failure, thus as an accomplice of South Vietnam, the USA naturally could not cash in and win the Vietnam War.

2 American Ideology in the Memoir

For most Americans during the Vietnam War, the image of the Vietnam War they had was in large part their own imagination and was inconsistent with the real situation. In order to guide the domestic public opinion to support the Vietnam War, the American government tried to construct an image of the Vietnam War which was different from the objective reality by various forms of ideological propaganda. As “an intrinsic concept as a dogma, a complex of thoughts and beliefs, etc., whose purpose is to persuade us to believe in its 'truth' but it actually serves the secretive interest of special power” (Zizek, 2002:13), ideology of America played a great role in advocating the war. In fact, “ideology is just such a system that claims to be able to obtain truth, that is, it is not just a lie, but a lie that is presented as truth, a lie that pretends to be taken seriously” (Zizek, 1989:30). Therefore, Terry Eagleton pointed out that "ideology is a misinterpretation of the truth" (Eagleton, 2002:266). With the powerful ideological propaganda, the American was immerged in their imagination of the Vietnam War and thus the Vietnam War was misguided by the American ideology created by the US authorities (Li, 2013:196).

2.1 Setting: The Vietnam War

When Ron Kovic was still a kid, he dreamed of becoming a real man one day. As he grew older, he heard Kennedy’s presidential speeches advocating going into the war, and he became more and more yearning to fight in a war. So he chose the latter between going to college and joining the marine corps. In other words, Kovic wasted no time to follow the American ideology delivered by the American president.