ENGL 2655 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Shell Shock, Moral Agency
Document Summary
English: modern literature, poetry of first world war. Wrote during war during one of darkest periods of wwi, published 1918. He has forgotten the social turbulence before the war, he has forgotten women"s suffrage movement. Novel links the personal traumas with the social/military traumas of wwi. Amnesia returns chris to a bubble of happiness. Images of bubbles and closed spheres (of happiness and a better time but also of class) Then people thought it was a moral ailment (stresses of battle such as nervous collapse or cowardice) as a result sometimes not treated well by leaders. Doc in book understands shell shock has to do with the nature of the unconsciousness west is progressive with this view. Other traumas: linked trauma of death of child that connects the private suffering of family life and the public suffering on the western front. Opening scene kitty and jenny are in nursery waiting for soldier to come home in the nursery.