https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i4.109
War and Literature: Aggression, Trauma, and Cultural Impact
DR. DEEPA THOMAS
Associate Professor
Department of English
Deva Matha College (Autonomous), Kuravilangad, Kottayam
Email: deepatoms@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper explores the relationships between war, aggressiveness, and cultural influence in literary discourse, contending that rather than only reflecting armed conflict, war literature actively influences how societies view, recall, and react to it. The study uses qualitative textual analysis enhanced by cultural-historical contextualization, drawing on a corpus of classic and modern war literature, including works by Wilfred Owen, Erich Maria Remarque, Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Vonnegut, Tim O’Brien, and Chinua Achebe. The analysis is structured by theoretical frameworks from postcolonial critique, cultural memory theory, and trauma studies. Four main conclusions are drawn: the field has grown significantly to include postcolonial and non-Western voices that challenge Eurocentric war narratives; it documents the profound psychological effects of armed conflict; it exposes the ideological mechanisms that states use to justify aggression; and it causes long-lasting changes in language, aesthetics, and collective memory. The study comes to the conclusion that literature is still a vital humanistic tool because of its ability to humanize suffering, prevent forgetting, and refute the rhetoric of violence.
Keywords: War Literature, Cultural Memory, Trauma Narrative, Postcolonial Representation, Literary Witness
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