An essay which explores and analyses a particular issue in the field

An which explores and analyses a particular issue in the field of interpretation - Essay Example This author will assess the interpretation of war and the multiple factors that dictate the many perspectives on the topic. In Carol Acton’s article Diverting the Gaze: The Unseen Text in Women’s War Writing, she talks about the difference in how women perceive war verses the way men see it. She notes that, â€Å"while womens war writing from the First World War has received much critical attention over the past ten or more years that has established its authenticity as witness to war, scant attention has been paid to how women see the trauma of frontline combat nursing and how, consequently, such seeing or not seeing influences the narrative (Acton, p54).† The author focuses on the perception of how women perceive the trauma of war specifically nurses who aren’t necessarily fighting on the frontline, but who are providing medical care for soldiers and often caring for them right up to their last living moments. Acton notes how writings produced by women of the first World War and Vietnam were very similar, she goes on to point out that, On a general level, the striking similarity in the narratives of these two wars seems to arise from the compulsion to bear witness to the trauma of combat nursing. More specifically, British writers from the First World War and American writers from the Vietnam War were both concerned with carrying what Jane Marcus has called "a terrible knowledge" to a civilian population that seemed completely removed from any understanding of the war experience (Acton, p54) The contrast Acton makes between the women nursing the soldiers, both American and British, in both World War I and Vietnam, with the civilians reveals how there is a major difference in interpretation of war when one is on the frontline verses just assessing it when it’s far away. Acton goes on to point how