The Return of the Soldier
Encyclopedia
The Return of the Soldier is the debut novel
of English
novelist Rebecca West
first published in 1918
. The novel recounts the return of the shell shocked Captain Chris Baldry from the trenches of The First World War from the perspective of his female cousin Jenny. The novel grapples with the soldier's return from World War I with trauma and it's effects on the family, and optimistically suggests that psychoanalysis might offer a simple cure to the trauma.
Though initially reviewed by critics, literary scholars treating West's work tended to focus on her later novels dismissing The Return of the Soldier until the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty first.The novel was adapted into a film of the same name
in 1982.
Soon after, another cousin of Jenny notifies the two women that he in fact has visited Chris and he is obsessing over Margaret, whom he had had a summer fling with fifteen years before. Soon after, Chris returns shell-shocked to the estate thinking he is still twenty years old, but finding himself in a strange world which had aged fifteen years beyond his memory. Trying to understand what is real for Chris, Jenny asks Chris to explain what he is feeling to be true. Chris tells her the story of a romantic summer on Monkey Island, where Chris at the age of twenty falls in love with Margaret, the daughter of the innkeeper on the island. The summer ends with a rash departure by Chris caused by a fit of jealousy.
After Chris tells this story, Jenny travels to London to bring Margaret back to Chris and help him understand the difference between his remembered past and reality. She arrives at Margaret's dilapidated row-house to find her disheveled and taking care of her husband. After some conversation, Jenny convinces Margaret to return with her to the estate in order to help Chris. Upon Margaret's return, Chris recognizes her and becomes excited. Margaret explains how fifteen years have passed between the Monkey Island summer and that Chris is now married to Kitty before returning to her home. Chris acknowledges this passage of time intellectually but cannot retrieve his memories and still pines for his love of Margaret.
Margaret continues to visit and Kitty and Jenny despair about Chris's loss of memory. Jenny and Kitty decide to consult Dr Gilbert Anderson, a psychoanalyst. Dr. Anderson arrives during one of Margaret's visits. Dr. Anderson questions the women, and with the help of Margaret decides on a course of treatment: Margaret must confront Chris with proof of his dead child. Margaret retrieves toys and clothing with the child, and confronts Chris with the truth. Finally, Chris regains his memory, Margaret departs and Kitty rejoices in the Chris's return to a state fit to be a soldier.
Kitty Baldry on the other hand, is neoclassical in her outlook. Instead of the romantic optimism which Chris exhibits throughout the novel, Kitty's life revolves around the "proper forms" of an upperclass performance. Obsessed with self control, good breeding, manners and making life tidy and comfortable, Kitty creates a facade of happiness which she projects on Baldry Court.
Margaret is a character cast in strong contrast with Kitty. Appearing like a worn out lower class women, whom the narrator Jenny initially feels hostile against, Margaret reveals herself as both thoughtful and aware, both critically revealing the illusions in Baldry Court to Jenny and supporting and expanding Dr. Anderson's analysis of Chris's psychological state.
The limited unreliable narrator in The Return of the Soldier is Jenny, who is cousin to Chris, the soldier whom the title evokes. As the novel, Jenny's sympathies and attention shift from Kitty to Margaret. This shifting narration, makes the novel more about the women and less about Chris.
's Jacob's Room
.
The successful treatment of the returned soldier who is full of psychological trauma is a fundemental element of The Return of the Soldier. Unlike the postwar novels Mrs Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
by Dorothy L. Sayers
which emphasize the lingering effects of war after despite attempts at reintegration, The Return of the Soldier lends a certain optimism that the soldier can reintegrate back into the society. From West's perspective during the war, the condition of being traumatized by war is seen as curable.
Literary scholars Cristina Pividori, Wyatt Bonikowski and Steve Pinkerton all seek to challenge the negative reception of the psychological tools in the novel. Bonowskie dissects the novel in light of the discussion of World War I proposed by Freud in "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
" and Beyond the Pleasure Principle
and says that Freud and West came to similar conclusions on the effect of war on the human ego: that war shatter's the defensive mechanisms which the ego creates to defend itself. Pividori argues that West utilizes a more complex understanding of the human psyche then Freud. Pividori argues that West doesn't believe that the soldier must relive the trauma to reconcile it within himself like Freud argues. In West's assessment of the situation, the soldier's desire to survive leads him to a search for love and life so that he may communicate the atrocities which he has witnessed. Pinkerton argues that the end of The Return of the Soldier points to Margaret as a character and individual who is extremely adept in analyzing and in tune with Chris and that the actual event is plausible within current psychoanalytic theory. Pinkerton even goes so far as to suggest that the very nature of the trauma and kind of cure necessary to resolve Chris's trauma means that "The scene of Chris's cure, then cannot be written" because the resolution is simply unable to effectively be described.
reviewed The Return of the Soldier in The North American Review as "The Book of the Month". Amidst his commentary on the allusiveness of any information about West from her or her publisher, Lawrence gave the book praise calling it "an authentic masterpiece, a one act drama of with music". In his review, he praises her language and ability to depict a realist level detail. Additionally, he applauds West for treating a romantic subject without becoming sentimental.
Later literary critics often neglected The Return of the Soldier until the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. Earlier criticism was characterized by a negative response, often dismissing the novel on grounds of amateurishness of execution in both its style and use of thematic tools such as it's use of Freudian psychoanalysis. The more recent critics have focused on the complexity of the novel expressing multiple different types themes, including feminist issues, the role of women in patriarchal society, war and trauma and masculinity and war.
starring Alan Bates
as Baldry and co-starring Julie Christie
, Ian Holm
, Glenda Jackson
, and Ann-Margret
.
Debut novel
A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...
of English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
novelist Rebecca West
Rebecca West
Cicely Isabel Fairfield , known by her pen name Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, DBE was an English author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. A prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, West was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was one of the foremost public...
first published in 1918
1918 in literature
The year 1918 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The 2nd annual Pulitzer Prizes are awarded.* Author Hall Caine made a KBE.*Robert Graves marries Nancy Nicholson...
. The novel recounts the return of the shell shocked Captain Chris Baldry from the trenches of The First World War from the perspective of his female cousin Jenny. The novel grapples with the soldier's return from World War I with trauma and it's effects on the family, and optimistically suggests that psychoanalysis might offer a simple cure to the trauma.
Though initially reviewed by critics, literary scholars treating West's work tended to focus on her later novels dismissing The Return of the Soldier until the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty first.The novel was adapted into a film of the same name
The Return of the Soldier (film)
The Return of the Soldier is a 1982 British film starring Alan Bates as Baldry and co-starring Julie Christie, Ian Holm, Glenda Jackson, and Ann-Margret about a shell-shocked officer's return from the First World War....
in 1982.
Background
The Return of the Soldier is Rebecca's West's first novel. It was published in 1918 during World War I and remained the only novel written and published by a women during the war about the war.Plot summary
The novel begins as the narrator, Jenny, describes her cousin by marriage Kitty Baldry pining in the abandoned nursery where her dead first son would have been raised. Occupied with the domestic management of the Baldry estate just outside of London, the two are almost completely removed from the horrors of World War I. The only exception is that Kitty's husband, Chris Baldry, is a British soldier fighting in France. While Kitty laments in the nursery, Margaret Grey arrives at the estate wishing to bear news to the two women. When Jenny and Kitty meet her, they are surprised to find a drab middle-aged woman. And even more to their shock, the women tells them that the War Office sent Margaret notification of Chris's injury and return home, not Kitty and Jenny. Kitty dismisses Margaret from the estate trying to deny that she could have been the recipient of such information.Soon after, another cousin of Jenny notifies the two women that he in fact has visited Chris and he is obsessing over Margaret, whom he had had a summer fling with fifteen years before. Soon after, Chris returns shell-shocked to the estate thinking he is still twenty years old, but finding himself in a strange world which had aged fifteen years beyond his memory. Trying to understand what is real for Chris, Jenny asks Chris to explain what he is feeling to be true. Chris tells her the story of a romantic summer on Monkey Island, where Chris at the age of twenty falls in love with Margaret, the daughter of the innkeeper on the island. The summer ends with a rash departure by Chris caused by a fit of jealousy.
After Chris tells this story, Jenny travels to London to bring Margaret back to Chris and help him understand the difference between his remembered past and reality. She arrives at Margaret's dilapidated row-house to find her disheveled and taking care of her husband. After some conversation, Jenny convinces Margaret to return with her to the estate in order to help Chris. Upon Margaret's return, Chris recognizes her and becomes excited. Margaret explains how fifteen years have passed between the Monkey Island summer and that Chris is now married to Kitty before returning to her home. Chris acknowledges this passage of time intellectually but cannot retrieve his memories and still pines for his love of Margaret.
Margaret continues to visit and Kitty and Jenny despair about Chris's loss of memory. Jenny and Kitty decide to consult Dr Gilbert Anderson, a psychoanalyst. Dr. Anderson arrives during one of Margaret's visits. Dr. Anderson questions the women, and with the help of Margaret decides on a course of treatment: Margaret must confront Chris with proof of his dead child. Margaret retrieves toys and clothing with the child, and confronts Chris with the truth. Finally, Chris regains his memory, Margaret departs and Kitty rejoices in the Chris's return to a state fit to be a soldier.
Characters
Chris Baldry is an upper class gentlemen who chafes against the upper class expectations in which he is cast into. His amnesia filled return reveals someone who has a suppressed "romantic sensibility" according to critic Carl Rollyson. As Jenny comments in the book, he "was not like other city men", he had a "great faith in the improbable". Chris, throughout the novel is treated simply as the "soldier" and is often not given a full examination by Jenny as the narrator, thus making his character a flat individual stuck in his masculine function in society.Kitty Baldry on the other hand, is neoclassical in her outlook. Instead of the romantic optimism which Chris exhibits throughout the novel, Kitty's life revolves around the "proper forms" of an upperclass performance. Obsessed with self control, good breeding, manners and making life tidy and comfortable, Kitty creates a facade of happiness which she projects on Baldry Court.
Margaret is a character cast in strong contrast with Kitty. Appearing like a worn out lower class women, whom the narrator Jenny initially feels hostile against, Margaret reveals herself as both thoughtful and aware, both critically revealing the illusions in Baldry Court to Jenny and supporting and expanding Dr. Anderson's analysis of Chris's psychological state.
Style
The style of West's early novels, including The Return of the Soldier, is characteristic of other British Modernist novels: it utilizes a limited point of view, non-linear narration and offers themes of memory, sexual desire and the importance of nuanced detail. The temporal displacement and uncertainty of most of the novel addition in particular is present, especially in how Chris's shell shock displaces him, and subsequently the reader during his story telling, back fifteen. This additional shift beyond simply the period at war in France reinforces the idea that his trauma could be linked to his marriage with Kitty, or any number of other events. Additionally, Chris's sense of time is repeatedly broken throughout the novel and communicated through Jenny.The limited unreliable narrator in The Return of the Soldier is Jenny, who is cousin to Chris, the soldier whom the title evokes. As the novel, Jenny's sympathies and attention shift from Kitty to Margaret. This shifting narration, makes the novel more about the women and less about Chris.
Soldier's return
The title The Return of the Soldier enunciates a common trope amongst Great War literature: the soldiers return from war and interaction with everyday life, confronting trauma which he received through the stress of trauma. The Return of the Soldier is the first deliberate evocation of the returned soldier in literature. West treatment of the returning soldier in The Return of the Soldier is deliberately distanced from the war. The trauma of the soldier, Chris's amnesia in The Return of the Soldier, becomes an isolated peace of evidence of the war's effect on a society which appears to be functioning otherwise normally. This distance is very similar to the distance from war and its trauma in Virginia WoolfVirginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
's Jacob's Room
Jacob's Room
Jacob's Room is the third novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on October 26th 1922.The novel centers, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders, and is presented entirely by the impressions other characters have of Jacob [except for those times when we do...
.
The successful treatment of the returned soldier who is full of psychological trauma is a fundemental element of The Return of the Soldier. Unlike the postwar novels Mrs Dalloway
Mrs Dalloway
Mrs Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post-World War I England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels....
by Virginia Woolf and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is a 1928 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fourth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.- Plot outline:General Fentiman is found dead at the Bellona Club in London, where his body went unnoticed for some hours. His wealthy sister also passed away the same day and under...
by Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
which emphasize the lingering effects of war after despite attempts at reintegration, The Return of the Soldier lends a certain optimism that the soldier can reintegrate back into the society. From West's perspective during the war, the condition of being traumatized by war is seen as curable.
Psychoanalysis
Freudian psychoanalysis and it's tools for understanding the psychological state of an individual are an important element of the novel. Freud and the idea of psychoanalysis were popular during the time when West was writing the novel and the focuses on psychoanalysis is fundamental to the conclusion of the book. In the conclusion, Chris is miraculously cured after his subconscious is first analyzed and then confronted by the doctor and Margaret. Despite West expressing in 1928 that the novel is not focused on psychoanalysis, critics have payed close attention to it often criticizing the simplicity of the psychoanlytical solution to Chris's amnesia. The rapidity of the recovery, and the failure of the reader to witness the conversation between Margaret and Chris are often cited by several critics, especially Wolfe, Orel, Gledhill and Sokoloff.Literary scholars Cristina Pividori, Wyatt Bonikowski and Steve Pinkerton all seek to challenge the negative reception of the psychological tools in the novel. Bonowskie dissects the novel in light of the discussion of World War I proposed by Freud in "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
Thoughts for the Times on War and Death
Thoughts for the Time of War and Death is an essay written by Sigmund Freud in 1915, 6 months after the outbreak of World War I. The essay expresses discontent with human nature and human society in respect to the outbreak of the War.-External links:**...
" and Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
"Beyond the Pleasure Principle" is an essay by Sigmund Freud. It marked a turning point and a major modification of his previous theoretical approach. Before this essay, Freud was understood to have placed the sexual instinct, Eros, or the libido, centre stage, in explaining the forces which drive...
and says that Freud and West came to similar conclusions on the effect of war on the human ego: that war shatter's the defensive mechanisms which the ego creates to defend itself. Pividori argues that West utilizes a more complex understanding of the human psyche then Freud. Pividori argues that West doesn't believe that the soldier must relive the trauma to reconcile it within himself like Freud argues. In West's assessment of the situation, the soldier's desire to survive leads him to a search for love and life so that he may communicate the atrocities which he has witnessed. Pinkerton argues that the end of The Return of the Soldier points to Margaret as a character and individual who is extremely adept in analyzing and in tune with Chris and that the actual event is plausible within current psychoanalytic theory. Pinkerton even goes so far as to suggest that the very nature of the trauma and kind of cure necessary to resolve Chris's trauma means that "The scene of Chris's cure, then cannot be written" because the resolution is simply unable to effectively be described.
Critical reception
In May 1918, Lawrence GilmanLawrence Gilman
Lawrence Gilman was a U.S. author and music critic.Lawrence Gilman was the son of Arthur Coit Gilman and Bessie Gilman, and the grandnephew of educator Daniel Coit Gilman. Lawrence Gilman studied art at Collins Street Classical School in Hartford, Connecticut under William M. Chase...
reviewed The Return of the Soldier in The North American Review as "The Book of the Month". Amidst his commentary on the allusiveness of any information about West from her or her publisher, Lawrence gave the book praise calling it "an authentic masterpiece, a one act drama of with music". In his review, he praises her language and ability to depict a realist level detail. Additionally, he applauds West for treating a romantic subject without becoming sentimental.
Later literary critics often neglected The Return of the Soldier until the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. Earlier criticism was characterized by a negative response, often dismissing the novel on grounds of amateurishness of execution in both its style and use of thematic tools such as it's use of Freudian psychoanalysis. The more recent critics have focused on the complexity of the novel expressing multiple different types themes, including feminist issues, the role of women in patriarchal society, war and trauma and masculinity and war.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The novel was made into a 1982 filmThe Return of the Soldier (film)
The Return of the Soldier is a 1982 British film starring Alan Bates as Baldry and co-starring Julie Christie, Ian Holm, Glenda Jackson, and Ann-Margret about a shell-shocked officer's return from the First World War....
starring Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
as Baldry and co-starring Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
, Ian Holm
Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...
, Glenda Jackson
Glenda Jackson
Glenda May Jackson, CBE is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She has been a Member of Parliament since 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. She previously served as MP for Hampstead and Highgate...
, and Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret Olsson is a Swedish-American actress, singer and dancer whose professional name is Ann-Margret. She became famous for her starring roles in Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, The Cincinnati Kid, Carnal Knowledge, and Tommy...
.