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As“a marker of difference and distinction”(Shilling,2005:167,170),drinking isnever merely a biological or economic activity,but is associated with cultures includinglong-standing values,health beliefs.Alcohol has a long history of being taken as ameasurement of culture distinction.For example,ancient Greeks and Romans“judgedother cultures partly by what they drank and how they drank it”(Phillips,2014:32);theFrench government's campaign to replace wine with milk in 1954 was based on thesymbolism in the association of wine with national identity(Barthes,1957:59).Thefirst distinction alcohol implies in the novel is that between the narrator’s opposingsuperiors.

The novel begins and ends with alcohol drinking scenes involving the narrator andhis two antagonistic military superiors:the General of the South and the commandant ofthe North.Drinking Jack Daniel’s at the office,the story begins as the General,togetherwith his American military consultant Claude and his aide-de-camp the narrator,struggles to make a retreat plan after receiving the message that the North army hasbeen attacking and occupying Saigon,the capital city of the South regime.The whiskeyis initially brought by Claude to the General,and is later brought to the narrator by theGeneral in order to make the narrator responsible for making a name list of people withwhom they are going to take on the retreat flight to the US.Appearing gloomy due tothe continuous bad news about military failure of the South,the General,who used to beambitious and passionate about enjoying alcohol with others,is now hopelessparticularly in expecting to“procure an excellent bottle of Bourgogne and to drink itwith companions who knew(know)better than to put ice cubes in their wine”(2).

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B.Political Dominance through Alcohol

Human history is partially a history of the body,which is the basis of humancognition and the material carrier of human thought.The natural political attribute ofhuman decides that human body and politics are inevitably interwoven together.MichelFoucault believes that the body,as a productive force,is subject to the interference ofpower and dominance and is the way by which power can achieve the purpose ofdiscipline and control(1995:11).An important way for the power to dominate the bodyis through alcohol.

The commandant’s association of rice wine with Vietnamese nation and revolutionechoes the anti-colonialism movement involving alcohol in Vietnamese history.Frenchcolonial government in Indochina,which spanned from 1897 to 1945,is now called“alcohol regime”(Sasges,2017:1).This label indicates the political importance ofalcohol in Indochina especially Vietnam.Despite the fact that the net revenue of Frenchalcohol monopoly in colonial Vietnam was less than what people generally expect,contributing less than 3 percent of the total revenue of the colony(Sasges,2012),French colonial authority established“a centralized colonial state”by retaining“thepower of the central government directly into the Vietnamese countryside”(ibid.),andfacilitated the dominance of French capital exclusively in local market.All in all,alcohol once provided a channel through which Fr本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。