The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West | “conformity, ‘madness’ and the price of war”
Published as the last few months of the First World War played out, Rebecca West’s novel The Return of the Soldier takes place in a country house situated just outside of London. Kitty Baldry, fashionable, delicately feminine, is visited by a woman called Margaret Grey. Together with her husband’s cousin, Jenny, Kitty pieces together the reason for Margaret’s visit.
Unattached but desperately in love
Margaret has received a notice from the War Office that Chris Baldry, Kitty’s husband, has been discharged from military duty on medical grounds. Margaret gently broaches the reason why Chris has contacted her and not Kitty. Suffering from a form of PTSD, the soldier has returned but his mind has retreated to a time and place 15 years in the past. Margaret, now also married, was Chris’ early, formative love. He believes he is younger, unattached but desperately in love with Margaret. His marriage, the war itself, has been lost. He cannot remember any of it.
Unflinchingly modern
It is the unsettling juxtaposition of Edwardian country-house life and the reach of the First World War that marks West’s novel as not necessarily modernist, but unflinchingly modern. This is not a curate and teacups novel: the emotions, though suppressed, are dramatic in scale and refuse to be ignored. The essential self – an idea posited by a psychoanalyst hired by Jenny to treat Chris – pushes through the politesse of a society not ready to face the realities of the 20th century.
Intense narrative
West’s novel – never out of print since its debut in 1918 – reaches an extraordinary high-water point that the author wasn’t able to counter until her late novel, The Fountain Overflows, in 1956. The intense narrative hit delivered by The Return of the Soldier echoes some of West’s early influences. Well-connected, she was friends with Joseph Conrad and H.G Wells among others. The terse quality of Conrad’s prose – Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, The Secret Agent – is reflected in West’s economy with words. A slim novel, under 180 pages, not a sentence is wasted. Even the locations within the novel are described in psychological tones and shades – everything has a purpose.
Questions about societal norms
It is West’s handling of psychology that is so impressive. At this point, the science of ‘shell shock’ and PTSD was still in its infancy. The First World War had not even ended at this point, and West’s sensitive detailing of Chris’ amnesia feels decades ahead of its time. The question as to whether Chris should be left in a blissful state of youthful indiscretion, or whether his loved ones have a duty of care to have him ‘cured’, bring him back, is one that West leaves to us to determine. In turn, she raises bigger questions about societal norms and the role the individual plays, in either accepting or rejecting them.
Drawing a fullness
A common accusation levelled at West is one of snobbery. But the mistake is to assume that West’s characters are voicing opinions the author held herself. In The Return of the Soldier, Jenny barely disguises her repulsion, a physical disdain, of Margaret. West delves into layers of classist language and attitude, as we observe Margaret through Jenny’s eyes. The polar opposite of Kitty’s soft glamour, Margaret is noted for her “coarse” skin and greying hair. A perceived lack of physical grace is deemed equal to a dull slow-witted mind. But West does not share these views, because she refuses to reduce Margaret down to a series of ciphers. She draws Margaret with a fullness, encouraging us to see the character as gentle, warm and empathetic. It is not hard to see why Chris is drawn to her in his post-traumatic haze.
Conformity, ‘madness’ and the price of war
It is this level of sophistication that defines West’s skill as a writer. The ending, when it comes, is no less devastating but it is framed within a novel that asks searching, serious questions about conformity, ‘madness’ and the price paid during war, both on the frontline and by those left at home. On its publication, one critic dubbed the book an “authentic masterpiece”. Over 100 years later, in its analysis of complex trauma, The Return of the Soldier still has a great deal to say about the psychological impact of war.
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