Introduction: Shell Shock and the Traces of War

• Published in: Shell Shock and the Modernist Imagination pp. 1 - 16
• Main Author: Bonikowski, Wyatt
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2013
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Parade's End; death drive; Good Life; Young Man; American Psychiatric Association; War Neuroses; Soldier's Loss; Casualty Clearing Stations; Soldier's Symptoms; Repetitive Nightmares; literary language; Soldier's Silence; Battlefield Experience; DORA; Destructive Torrents; Draw Back; shell shock; Military Psychiatrists; Soldier's Return; Traumatic Relation; Clarissa Dalloway; historical events; dramatic shift; Ford's Parade's End; Repetitive Effects; Traumatic Wartime; Ford Madox Ford’s Parade; First World War; Figurative Language
• ISBN: 9781409444176; 1409444171; 9781138273108; 1138273104
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315608921-1

The emergence of shell shock during the First World War brought about a dramatic shift in the way we understand the effects of war. This chapter argues for the importance of the shell-shocked soldier, as a historical and a literary figure, in raising the problem of the effects of war on the mind. If there is a relationship between combatants and non-combatants, then, it may be best described as a traumatic relation, one fraught with conflict and miscommunication. The chapter examines the traumatic relation between soldiers and civilians, men and women, front line and home front, by focusing on the figure of the shell-shocked soldier and his encounters with those at home. The traumas of the First World War did not produce the death drive, nor was the soldier the first or the only one to experience its repetitive effects. The emergence of shell shock during the First World War brought about a dramatic shift in the way we understand the effects of war. This chapter argues for the importance of the shell-shocked soldier, as a historical and a literary figure, in raising the problem of the effects of war on the mind. If there is a relationship between combatants and non-combatants, then, it may be best described as a traumatic relation, one fraught with conflict and miscommunication. The chapter examines the traumatic relation between soldiers and civilians, men and women, front line and home front, by focusing on the figure of the shell-shocked soldier and his encounters with those at home. The traumas of the First World War did not produce the death drive, nor was the soldier the first or the only one to experience its repetitive effects.