越戰是美國歷史的一道分水嶺,戰敗重挫了美國的國族自信與男性氣概,成為了美國創傷文學的一條重要敘事線索。在小說《在鄉下》中,鮑比·安·梅森成功地將越戰創傷納入重憶軌道,為老兵艾米特開拓了一條創傷修復之路。本文將依循"集體失憶"—"重‘見’記憶"—"演繹記憶"的路徑首先考察集體失憶下戰爭話語的嬗變所導致的老兵身份降格;其次,本文將分析第二代創傷見證者如何"重見"越南,幫助受創者重返記憶之地并最終與過去達成和解,以期為南方文學的記憶研究提供新視角,并對視覺元素在當代文學創作與文學審美中所扮演的角色提出批判性思考。

The Vietnam War was a watershed in the U.S. history. Its defeat seriously frustrated America’s national confidence, constructions of American masculinity and came to constitute a recurring motif in its literature of trauma. In her novel In Country, Bobbie Ann Mason blazes a trail for Emmett, a veteran, to recover from trauma. Examining in turn "collective amnesia", "re-visualizing memory" and "acting out memory",this essay first investigates the degradation of Vietnam veterans’ identity through shifts in the discourse of war and collective amnesia. Then, it analyzes how the second-generation trauma witness "re-visualizes" Vietnam and helps the traumatized return to the site of memory and reconcile with the past. In this way the essay attempts to propose a new approach to American southern literature and rethink the role that visual elements play in contemporary literary creation and literary aesthetics.