“The Good War”: An Oral History of World War II

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1984

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Symbols & Motifs

Machismo and Gender

Terkel’s interviewees include women who enjoyed more personal freedom and career opportunities as a result of World War II. Despite this increased autonomy, they were pressured into marriage and suburban life by the increasingly conservative social attitudes of the United States at the time.

It is important to remember that gender roles and expectations affected men as well as women. The most striking example of this among Terkel’s interviewees is Ted Allenby, who admits he joined the Marines in the war to deal with his realization that he was gay because he had “that constant compelling need to prove how virile I was” (179). Even in a society as democratic as the United States, strong social compulsions and expectations motivated how individuals acted. Extreme rebels, like conscientious objector John H. Abbott, were definitely the outliers.

Racial Bias

Racism is a constant theme in the narratives collected by Terkel. It was perceived in the policies of Nazi Germany but also in the democratic United States. In America, racism was experienced through the segregation practiced by the military and many other American institutions, Japanese internment, and racist attitudes experienced by Hispanics and Italian Americans. Of course, there was also the racism experienced by people living in Nazi Germany, plus racist attitudes against enemy peoples throughout the war.