THE IRAQ WAR: FROM POLITICAL ARGUMENT TO FICTIONAL DISCOURSE

Of all the military conflicts the U.S. has been engaged in since 1941, the Iraq War enjoys in America the unwanted fame of being the most disfavoured, together with the Vietnam one, and of dividing the American nation sharply between its two main cultures. Thepresent paper brings together, as in a mirror, the media discourse related to the Iraq campaign and the fictional representation of the same event. The argumentative texts have commonly taken a determined political stand about it, expressing anger, disappointment,stupefaction and, more seldom, approval and support. The two representative American fictions discussed here, authored by Don DeLillo and Paul Auster, are focused rather on the individual's experience of the Iraq War and adopt a much more complex and nuanced attitude towards this pivotal event in recent history.