Rebecca West and the feminine writing of the First War in The Return Of The Soldier

• Autor(a) principal: Borille, Denise
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Literatura e Autoritarismo
• Texto Completo: http://periodicos.ufsm.br/LA/article/view/44354
• topic: World War I; Women Writing of War Trauma; Trauma Theory.; Primeira Guerra Mundial; Escrita feminina do trauma de guerra; Teoria do Trauma.

It is the aim of this paper to analyze women writing of war trauma in Rebecca West's The Return of The Soldier (1918), and to address, more specifically, how both men and women suffered from the trauma inflicted by World War I. Chris Baldry is a soldier who returns from the war front struck by traumatic amnesia, which prevents him from remembering what his life was like before the war. Back home, he finds three women living in his house: his wife, Kitty, whom he does not recognize; Chris's ex-lover, Margaret, who still loves him; and, finally, his cousin, Jenny. In symbolic terms, it is possible to think that the house where the three women live in with Chris represents a kind of "laboratory", a locus from which they observe World War I and formulate their views on this conflict.