Paul Fussell really elaborates on the lasting cultural and literary impact of World War I in a chapter titled “Persistence and Memory.” Some notable key features of this chapter include the similarities between memoirs and novels, the living memory of war, and the symbolism and imagery of World War I.
Fussell argues that both memoirs and first-person novels are similar in form, but the key difference is that memoirs adhere to facts and call for collected events, and that the boundary between the two genres is unclear. clearly (p. 336). From these arguments, in my opinion, first-person novels can also be considered memoirs because they are essentially the author's experience, and the novel is what the author wants to send through words.
Vivid memories of war still linger because of the brutality of the events, the irony that accompanied them, the psychology of crisis, and even the guilt of cowardly acts. or cruelty, which suggests that memories become an indispensable moral task (Fussell 354). Taking the Vietnam War as an example, I can see that literary works related to war crimes are mentioned many times in the general education curriculum, and I am not surprised that the Vietnamese government also regularly mention these events with banners placed on both sides of the road or in buildings.
Finally, Fussell also addresses the symbols and images of the First World War that still exist in Britain in everyday life in different ways – such as pub closing times, summer time…, or the use of paper money, which demonstrates that the war had a cultural and economic impact (Fussell 341). Fussell shows that ordinary foods such as eggs and chips also become wartime tracers when referring to food shortages and soldiers' diets during World War I (p. 342 ).