The mission chosen by every writer highly depends upon his/her civilian position. Understanding the potential of literature to influence the views and attitudes of readers, novelists frequently used their works as methods for communicating their civilian views to their readers. Raising the anti-Vietnam war concerns, Norman Mailer in his The Armies of the Night and Maxine Kingston in her Tripmaster Monkey expressed their positions concerning the war in Vietnam and totalitarian features in American government. Establishing the relationship between the civilian position and national identity, the novelists offered different methods for confronting war and totalitarian governance, ranging from active protest in Mailer to pacifism in Kingston. This paper will analyze the texts of The Armies of the Night and Tripmaster Monkey to show how Norman Mailer and Maxine Hong Kingston expressed their anti-Vietnam concerns through their main protagonists who are depicted as ambiguous rebels who protest against the war and determine their national identity. Anti-Vietnam concerns expressed by Mailer and Kingston Active protest of Norman Mailer in The Armies of the Night The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/ Novel as History by Norman Mailer was a form of the active protest of the novelist against the war in Vietnam and the indifference of the vast majority of his compatriots. In this novel, Vietnam is presented as a symbol of evil corrupting the country and ruining the lives and dreams of its citizens. Norman Mailer considered lethargy and entropy of his compatriots as important factors contributing to the development of events in Vietnam and criticized the passivity of Americans in The Armies of the Night . In one of the episodes of this novel, the author describes the indifferent attitude of the masses towards Vietnam by depicting an elderly woman in Vegas who only giggles in response to the words about tragedies in Vietnam and sticks to her own business. The woman is depicted in the gaming hall in Vegas and unable to adequately react to the phrases about war being preoccupied with the game. “Madame, we are burning children in Vietnam. – Boy, you just go get yourself lost. Grandma’s is about ready for a kiss from the jackpot…I hit! I hit! … Why, you poor burned child – you just brought me luck” (Mailer 152). In this unrealistic situation the orange-haired grandma is compared to the working class uninformed on the events in Vietnam and indifferent towards them. The woman’s striking indifference reveals Mailer’s criticism of his compatriots’ entropy and passivity. During demonstrations, Mailer gave speeches encouraging his compatriots to express their protest against the campaigns in Vietnam by sticking the photographs of then-president Lyndon Johnson upside down to express their attitude towards his presidency and decisions. Furthermore, Mailer regarded the book The Armies of the Night as influential as the march depicted in it (Wilson 87). Mailer expressed his anti-Vietnam concerns through the self-named protagonist of the Armies of the Night Norman Mailer. The central idea developed by Mailer in this book is that people should fight against war. The novelist insisted on active demonstrations and pointed out at the possible methods of expressing protest in t