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Born on the Fourth of July: From Victim to Savior

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2020, 33(1), pp.263-289
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama
  • Received : March 15, 2020
  • Accepted : April 14, 2020
  • Published : April 30, 2020

Kang, Hyeong-min 1

1건국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Based upon Ron Kovic’s autobiography, Olive Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July dramatizes how the protagonist, Ron Kovic, has progressed from a victim of the nation to a savior of the nation. At first, Kovic believes in the values of American society and American Myth. More specifically, Kovic truly follows the values represented by American institutions: family, community, military and history. However, through his experiences in the Vietnam War, he has disillusioned with the existing values since he comes to believe that those values are nothing but lies. Through its three-part dramatic structure, part one of Born on the Fourth of July shows the process of how the traditional American ideology has brainwashed and sent the innocent protagonist to the Vietnam War and sacrificed him. Paralyzed from the chest down because of his wound in Vietnam, the protagonist returns home and begins to experience the home front in part two of the film. Although the protagonist has become disillusioned with the American institutions and their values on the one hand in his war on the home front, he has also come to terms with his own mistakes and damaged self on the other. Thus, in part three of the film, the protagonist emerges as the national savior equipped with his new political and moral awakening as well as his anti-war activism.

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