Critique of the Cruelty of the Iraq War:The Symbolism in Kevin Power’s The Yellow Birds

• 作者: Aihua Chen Zainalabdeen A.Al Shnain AL-Janabi
• 来源期刊: 文学与艺术研究:英文版
• 学科: 教育
• 关键词: SYMBOLISM KEVIN POWERS The YELLOW BIRDS
• 年，卷（期）: wxyysyjywb_2019,（5）
• 页码范围: 479-487
• 页数: 9页
• 分类号: G633.41

摘要

The Yellow Birds novel is written by the American writer Kevin Powers who is an Iraq War veteran.In this novel,he presented his memories and terrible experiment during his service.The novel has been acclaimed as one of the best contemporary novels on war,not only for its literary value but also for its boldness to reveal America’s role in spreading destruction in the world since its inception.One of the novel’s striking features is that the American soldier is not depicted as a hero who came to save Iraqi people from a tyrant and to bring democracy on a dish of gold,but as a human being divided between death and survival.Powers uses many different symbols to express his convictions and ideas.Symbolism is a very important instrument in the formation of the story.He used symbols to accentuate the meaning of a story and explain certain actions of a character,as a major tool to improve the personality of his characters,to represent different themes and set up events.Therefore,the main concern of this paper is to identify the major symbols that Powers has used in this novel and elucidate on their significance.