| Description |
viii, 192 pages ; 25 cm |
| Summary |
Looking closely at both case histories of shell shock and Modernist novels by Ford Madox Ford, Rebecca West, and Virginia Woolf, Wyatt Bonikowski shows how the figure of the shell-shocked soldier and the symptoms of war trauma were transformed by the literary imagination. Situating his study with respect to Freud's concept of the death drive, Bonikowski reads the repetitive symptoms of shell-shocked soldiers as a resistance to representation and narrative. In making this resistance part of their narratives, Ford, West, and Woolf broaden our understanding of the traumatic effects of war, exploring the possibility of a connection between the trauma of war and the trauma of sexuality. Parade's End, The Return of the Soldier, and Mrs. Dalloway are all structured around the relationship between men and women. Instead, the novels underscore the divisions within the home and the self, drawing on the traumatic effects of shell shock to explore the link between the public events of history and the intimate traumas of the relations between self and other. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-186) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction : shell shock and the traces of war -- The invisible wound : shell shock and psychoanalysis -- Transports of a wartime impressionism : Ford Madox Ford's Parade's end -- The "passion of exile" : Rebecca West's The return of the soldier -- "Death was an attempt to communicate" : Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway -- Conclusions: the ethics and aesthetics of the death drive. |
| Subject |
English fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
|
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World War, 1914-1918 -- Literature and the war.
|
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Psychic trauma in literature.
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Death instinct in literature.
|
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Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-1939. Parade's end.
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West, Rebecca, 1892-1983. Return of the soldier.
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Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941. Mrs. Dalloway.
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Modernism (Literature) -- Great Britain.
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| Added Title |
Death drive in post-World War I British fiction |
| ISBN |
9781409444176 (hardcover: alkaline paper) |
|
1409444171 (hardcover: alkaline paper) |
|
9781409444183 (ebook) |
|
140944418X (ebook) |
|
9781472402882 (e-PUB) |
|
147240288X (e-PUB) |
| Standard No. |
40022179620 |
|
