Naslov
Mirage of war in Anthony Swafford's Jarhead (2003)

Autori
Poljak Rehlicki, Jasna

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
Facing the crises : anglophone literature in the postmodern world

Urednik/ci
Matek, Ljubica ; Poljak Rehlicki, Jasna

Izdavač
Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Grad
Newcastle upon Tyne

Godina
2014

Raspon stranica
91-108

ISBN
1-4438-5395-X

Ključne riječi
Persian Gulf War, Baudrillard, simulacrum, Swafford, Jarhead

Sažetak
In January 1991, the UN coalition forces launched two military operations in order to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. In a swift six week action Saddam Hussein’s army laid defeated. Almost simultaneously with the armed engagement, Jean Baudrillard wrote three controversial essays as his philosophical response to those events. The last one, published in late March 1991, was titled “The Gulf War did not take place”. In it the author challenges the reality, i.e. virtuality of modern war and combat, especially as a viewer of a TV Gulf War. Although he admits that something did happen in the Persian Gulf, Baudrillard is suspicious if those affairs constitute war. Twelve years after the “war”, Anthony Swafford published a memoir Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles in which he shares much of Baudrillard skepticism. Even as an infantry soldier, he sees himself only as a spectator of the war. Moreover, he refers to the whole six month experience as a mirage. Even though it might be understandable why Baudrillard would question the truthfulness of the media war coverage, it is unexpected that an American soldier as an active participant in that conflict should have a similar impression. A close reading of the memoir will try to illustrate that Swafford’s first hand action is indeed similar to Baudrillard’s idea of the virtual war with virtual enemies and victories and that it, at the same time, has an identical impact on a soldier as any other “real” war.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

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