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An American Word for War

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An American Word for War San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Master's Theses Master's Theses and Graduate Research Spring 2011 An American Word for War David Wirth San Jose State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses Recommended Citation Wirth, David, "An American Word for War" (2011). Master's Theses. 3961. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.qrwu-dw4q https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/3961 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses and Graduate Research at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AN AMERICAN WORD FOR WAR A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English and Comparative Literature San José State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts by David Modesto Wirth May 2011 © 2011 David Modesto Wirth ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Designated Thesis Committee Approves the Thesis Titled AN AMERICAN WORD FOR WAR by David Modesto Wirth APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY May 2011 Andrew Altschul Department of English and Comparative Literature Nick Taylor Department of English and Comparative Literature Robert Cullen Department of English and Comparative Literature ABSTRACT AN AMERICAN WORD FOR WAR by David Modesto Wirth Jesse is in his early twenties and stuck in Salinas, California. He works at Lenscrafters, making glasses, making decent money and he is comfortable. The novel opens when Jesse‟s high school friend, Ben, is visiting from Los Angeles, where he is a screenwriter. The two go to a party for another old acquaintance, Ian, who has just returned from a tour in Iraq. Their encounter with Ian sets the rest of the novel in motion. They are exposed to something big in the world (the machinery of a war that up to that point had been nothing more than words in magazines and pictures in newspapers). The two, who feel unaccomplished, decide that they want to do big things—important things. They decide to combat crime in Salinas, to become vigilantes, like Marvel Comics‟ The Punisher. They decide to do this despite the fact that neither of them can think of a time that he has seen or met a real criminal. Jesse‟s paternal grandparents are from Spain, and their story is told from a limited third-person perspective. This part of the novel is about the experiences of Jesse‟s grandparents during the Spanish Civil War, about being Nationalists behind Republican lines, and about being on the wrong side of a war. Parallels are drawn between Franco‟s war in Spain and the American war in Iraq. Ultimately, this novel is a coming-of-age story that explores themes of alienation, disenfranchisement, helplessness, and perspective. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For my Aunt Eileen and my mom and my dad, and everyone who read and supported. Contents Introduction-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------viii Works Cited----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------xiii I---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 1.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 2.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10 3.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11 4.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19 5.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19 6.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------22 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