Literature of the War
We begin with literature that grapples with the war as it unfolds or as its immediate consequences are felt. These texts ask: Who gets to tell the story of war? What does it mean to be “innocent,” “neutral,” or “just following orders”? And how do individuals navigate moral responsibility in the middle of history-making events?
Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955)
This video introduces Graham Greene’s The Quiet American, a novel written before large-scale U.S. military escalation in Vietnam but uncannily predictive of it. Greene centers a love triangle to dramatize the dangers of idealism, intervention, and the belief that one nation can “fix” another.
Discussion Questions
- How does Greene use the relationships between Fowler, Pyle, and Phuong to explore the consequences of “doing good” abroad?
- Where do you see the novel warning against a certain kind of American innocence or naïveté?
- How does Greene use the relationships between Fowler, Pyle, and Phuong to explore the consequences of “doing good” abroad?
- How might reading The Quiet American shape the way you approach later texts in this seminar that are written during or after the height of U.S. involvement?
Tim O’Brien, “On the Rainy River” from The Things They Carried (1990) - CVTI 2025 Seminar
Tim O’Brien’s “On the Rainy River” focuses not on combat, but on the agonizing moment before it: whether to go to war or flee to Canada. This video looks at how O’Brien blends memory, imagination, and confession to challenge simple ideas of courage and cowardice
Discussion Questions
- How does O’Brien complicate the idea of what it means to be “brave” or “cowardly”?
- What role does shame play in the narrator’s decision-making? Where do you see social pressure operating in the story?
- How does O’Brien complicate the idea of what it means to be “brave” or “cowardly”?
- How might this story change the way you think about the decisions that led people into the Vietnam War—on all sides?
Đặng Thùy Trâm, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace (2005)
This video turns to the diary of Đặng Thùy Trâm, a young North Vietnamese doctor whose writings were preserved and published decades after her death. Her diary offers an intimate, everyday view of the war from “the other side,” full of professional commitment, longing, and grief.
- What surprised you most about Đặng Thùy Trâm’s voice, concerns, or emotional world?
- How does her vantage point as a doctor shape the way she writes about war, sacrifice, and duty?
- What surprised you most about Đặng Thùy Trâm’s voice, concerns, or emotional world?
- In what ways does reading her diary alongside American texts challenge a single national narrative about the war?