Negotiating Heroism in Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Abstract

This paper examines Ben Fountain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk apropos heroism/post-heroism within the context of the 2003 Iraq War. The paper aims to uncover the novel’s approach to soldiers’ behavior on the battlefield, their perspectives on war, and how the American public interacts with their endeavors. While heroism celebrates acts of bravery and chivalry, post-heroism signals the decline of heroic ethos in the context of war, where soldiers are left to question the actual value of sacrifice on the battlefield. We make the argument through two constructs: “unheroic actions,” which addresses soldiers’ behavior in war, and “clash of perceptions,” which discusses soldiers’ versus the public’s perspectives on heroism and war. Though the novel’s setting serves to celebrate soldiers’ gallant feet in war, Fountain ridicules such heroic rhetoric throughout the novel and demonstrates how soldiers are reluctant to accept the public overenthusiasm about war and their status as war heroes.