Technology, Trauma, and the Post-Heroic Soldier in Michael Pitre's Five and Twenty-Five: A Postcolonial Perspective

Abstract

The Iraq War (2003-2011) has generated behind it a significant amount of literature that has left triumphalist accounts of the war and instead predicted trauma, alienation, and disillusionment. Five and Twenty-Five (2014) by Michael Pitre, a former U.S. Marine, is thus unique in its verisimilitude and attention to the maintenance of roads and the detection of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The text by Pitre places technology as a primary agent of character, theme, and form. This study explores the way the novel portrays technology as a trauma agent, destroyer of classical heroism, and an icon of postcolonial defiance. The study takes a qualitative approach in the form of a textual analysis inspired by three theories: trauma studies, post-heroism, and postcolonial theory. Selected passages were closely read and coded under these categories. Analysis depicts three critical insights. First, trauma in the novel is technologically mediated: the IED orders memory, perception, and hyper-vigilance in both the soldiers and the civilians. Second, the novel reflects the post-heroic situation, in which technology obliterates chances of heroism and makes soldiers mere survival figures. Third, the IED becomes a postcolonial instrument of retaliation and disrupts the American military dominance and subaltern agency. The work is an original contribution to the field of war literature since technology is at the focus of the research.