Title: Narrative Tension and Woman Liberation in July, July

Abstract: The contemporary American novelist Tim O’Brien’s novel July, July features a powerful narrative tension and insightful thematic meaning, well beyond the one-dimensional convention of Vietnam War novels. Combined with the title, the narrative structure builds itself upon an interaction between the present and past, with a classmate reunion underlain by clusters of individual characters’ memories. Characters are multiple in terms of both quantity and quality, jostling for proper space for rhetorical survival in the realm of narrative space, leaving thus a considerable character-space in readers’ mind. Female characters take advantage of both story and discourse arrangement, imbued with narratological and thematic significance. Such a characterization attests to the fruit of post-war woman liberation movement and its aftermath in the years to follow.

Keywords: Tim O’Brien, July, July, tension, narrative structure, character-space, woman liberation

Author: Fangmu Li, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2025.01.001