Sequels and phobias in The Return of the Soldier of Rebecca West :: Rebecca West

Times of war and peace Sequels and phobias in The come somewhat of the pass of Rebecca westernmost.Rebecca West (1892-1983) was a prolific writer who tried any literary genrejournalism, literary critique, the short story and the myth. Her first novel The Return ofthe Soldier published in 1918 spans half a degree centigrade of creative output culminated in 1966with her last novel The Birds F all in all Down. However, all her narrative is easily identifiablebecause of her unmistakable style, the structure of her novels, the topics she chooses andthe coherence of her ideas about mankind and society. Subsequently, all her novels arepsychological, historical and social documents depicting clement behavior in a precisehistorical and social context. West synthesizes what she observes rooting her ideas inBritish literary tradition. Her keen critical center field is twain penetrating and enlightening, forexample, when in The Return of the Soldier, Margaret Grey appears poorly appa releddaring to invade the Baldry mansion with her mud covered boots, while Jenny, thenarrator, expresses bumpy feelings of resentment towards Margaret and her social group.The latter is represented ... as the rich hate the poor, as insect things that will struggleout of the crannies which are their neat home, and introduce ugliness to the light ofday (West, 1918, rpt.1984 32)1.Wests literary reputation was revived in the 1980s with the disintegration ofYugoslavia. Her Black bear and Grey Falcon A Journey through Yugoslavia (1941)brought her wide critical attention because this novel was the last of her efforts tounderstand the pre-war situation. Furthermore, it was central to Wests next book, TheMeaning of Treason (1947), where she concentrated on the psychological characteristicsof traitors and she wondered what caused these quite a little to do what they didfor West,war fosters deception and betrayal. The final example of Wests interest in treason is hernovel The Birds Fall Do wn (1966) which concludes with the deaths of both the traitorand the friend he betrayed and in The Return of the Soldier, a count of the sequels of warin human mind, the protagonist is betrayed by his family. In the aforesaid(prenominal) novel,West employs what at the time was an original device, amnesia from war suffering orshell shock as well as an erratic perspective on warthat of those who waited athome. West tries to explore the reactions of trinity women to a returning soldier who,though married, remembers only an earlier hump for another woman.In spite of its obvious literary quality, The Return of the Soldier proved to be anovel severely punished by critics.