DOCSLIB.ORG

Representations of First World War Returned Soldiers on the Home

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Representations of First World War Returned Soldiers on the Home Representations of First World War Returned Soldiers on the Home Front in Some Commonwealth Women Writers’ Fiction Cyrena Grace Mazlin BSc / BA (Hons) The University of Queensland A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2013 School of English, Media Studies and Art History Abstract This thesis discusses the experience and the aftermath of the First World War and the way it problemitised ostensibly secure masculinities and femininities, and family relationships, as depicted by some Commonwealth women authors over three generations. With a particular focus on the character of the psychologically wounded returned soldier, I contend that the authors’ depictions of the home-front aftermath of the First World War challenge the dominant constructions of gender which existed at the time of the war, and that such subversions have a specific relationship to each author’s historical and social positionality. I analyse why the returned soldiers are represented in the manner that they are and the significance of this representation in the trajectory of women’s writing. Some of the novels are set during the First World War, while others take place many years after the Armistice. The novels are discussed chronologically and grouped according to the period at which the texts were written. In all the novels, the characters’ notions of their identities and their world are challenged to various degrees. The home fronts where struggles continue are in New Zealand, Australia, Southern Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe), and Britain. The female authors studied in this thesis write about the pervasive condition that was named shellshock, its manifestations and its rippling domestic effects, as symptomatic of patriarchal, capitalist, and imperialist systems in crisis. The first chapter addresses the representation of returned soldiers in novels by first-generation First World War authors, those writing at the time of the war and in the years immediately following. Rose Macaulay’s Non-Combatants and Others (1916), Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918), and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925) are read as war novels that highlight and critique the association between shellshock and the exhibition of “unmanly” behaviour; the effect that expectations of manliness had on those soldiers who were victims of shellshock; and how the past and present trauma experienced by the returned soldiers is filtered, perceived, and absorbed by the female characters in the novels. The narrative point of view is most-often female and this consequently facilitates my discussion of how women characters perceive men’s bodies in trauma. Non-Combatants and Others is the centre of the chapter’s discussion as it poignantly depicts the extent of the social malaise that the First World War highlighted. The second chapter considers tense and traumatic pasts in the autobiographies and autobiographical fiction of Doris Lessing and Janet Frame, both of whom were daughters of First World War returned soldiers. In this chapter I suggest that their fathers’ war service and the trauma both men sustained shaped each author’s understanding and consequent depiction of war’s inexorable infiltration of the domestic sphere. In considering each author’s depiction of the war, I explore how its presence crystallised pre-existing gender conflict. Both authors spent their formative years, the 1920s and 30s, in households seething with resentment and financial hardship and shadowed by grief. I propose that, in writing autobiographical fiction – Lessing’s Martha Quest (1952) and Alfred and Emily (2008), and Frame’s Towards Another Summer (written in 1963 and published posthumously in 2007) – both engaged in a therapeutic act. In doing so, each author re-imagined her father’s history and its bearing on her life as a means of mitigating her own trauma as a daughter of violence. Chapter three is a comparative reading of the returned soldier and war-wounded characters in the eleven novels Frame published during her lifetime. In considering these characters and the significance of their presence in her work, I suggest that Frame’s writing is haunted by the emotional debris of war. In creating returned soldier characters, Frame wrote against the glorification of war – which served to reinforce notions of the triumph of imperialism, and was endemic in Britain and its former dominions – and also about the “sex war” that had taken place since much earlier times in the patriarchal family. The final chapter of the thesis explores contemporary representations of returned First World War soldiers in Pat Barker’s Another World (1998), Life Class (2007), and Toby’s Room (2012) – three of Barker’s war novels in which the narrative point of view moves between women and men and combatants and non-combatants – and Brenda Walker’s The Wing of Night (2005). The shell-shocked soldiers of Barker and Walker are characters that represent their authors’ contemporary knowledge of, and perspectives on, the interplay between expectations about gender roles and war-induced psychological trauma. This study highlights how the novels imagine and articulate the haunting significance of the returned First World War soldier characters’ trauma in the lives of other characters, and in the light of what each author suggests about the way the First World War produced a heightened sense of the problematics of conventional masculinities and femininities. Declaration by author This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis. I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award. I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the General Award Rules of The University of Queensland, immediately made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis. Publications during candidature Peer-Review Papers Mazlin, Cyrena. “Janet Frame’s Returned Soldiers.” Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/ New Zealand Literature 28.1 (2014): in press. Mazlin, Cyrena. “Rose Macaulay’s And No Man’s Wit: The Forgotten Spanish Civil War Novel.” Hecate 37.1 (2011): 56-69. Mazlin, Cyrena. “War-torn Masculinity: Some Women’s Fiction of First World War Returned Soldiers.” International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3.16 (2010): 264-75. Conference Proceedings Mazlin, Cyrena. “The Transgenerational War Chronotope: Traces of Violence in Pat Barker's Another World and Janet Frame's Intensive Care.” [online] When the Soldiers Return: November 2007 Conference Proceedings. Ed. Martin Crotty. Brisbane: University of Queensland, School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, 2009. 131-136. Publications included in this thesis Mazlin, Cyrena. “Janet Frame’s Returned Soldiers.” Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/ New Zealand Literature 28.1 (2014): in press. I was the sole author of this article and parts of it were developed into Chapters Two and Three of this thesis. Mazlin, Cyrena. “War-torn Masculinity: Some Women’s Fiction of First World War Returned Soldiers.” International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3.16 (2010): 264-75. I was the sole author of this article and parts of it are included in Chapter Four of this thesis. Contributions by others to the thesis No contributions by others. Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree None. Acknowledgements This thesis, like most theses, is the product of several years of hard work and the efforts and consideration of many people to whom I am deeply grateful. To my principal supervisor, Carole Ferrier, and my associate supervisor, Bronwen Levy, thank you for thoughtful criticism, incisive comments, and enlightening suggestions – your input has been invaluable. Thank you also to Jude Seaboyer, Tony Thwaites, Margaret Henderson, Nathan Garvey, Sharon Bickle, Cathy Squirrell, Angela Tuohy, Vicky McNicol, Stormy Wehi, Ros Gresshoff, Maureen McGrath, Nick Lord, Kirril Shields, and Amy Reed. Thank you to the school of English, Media Studies, and Art History for funding my attendance at, and travel to, a number of particularly informative conferences. I am grateful to my family and friends for their constant support, encouragement, and patience. Thank you especially to my parents, who never doubted I would finish. Last, to Russ and Arnold, my biggest fans, my commiserators, my bright-siders, and my saviours: Thank you. Keywords First World War,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • CDN Battle of Vimy Ridge.Pdf
    Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 1 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 2 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 3 BRERETON GREENHOUS STEPHEN J. HARRIS Canada and the BATTLE OF VIMY RIDGE 9-12 April 1917 Bataille de Vimy-E.qxp 1/2/07 11:37 AM Page 4 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Greenhous, Brereton, 1929- Stephen J. Harris, 1948- Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917 Issued also in French under title: Le Canada et la Bataille de Vimy 9-12 avril 1917. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-660-16883-9 DSS cat. no. D2-90/1992E-1 2nd ed. 2007 1.Vimy Ridge, Battle of, 1917. 2.World War, 1914-1918 — Campaigns — France. 3. Canada. Canadian Army — History — World War, 1914-1918. 4.World War, 1914-1918 — Canada. I. Harris, Stephen John. II. Canada. Dept. of National Defence. Directorate of History. III. Title. IV.Title: Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917. D545.V5G73 1997 940.4’31 C97-980068-4 Cet ouvrage a été publié simultanément en français sous le titre de : Le Canada et la Bataille de Vimy, 9-12 avril 1917 ISBN 0-660-93654-2 Project Coordinator: Serge Bernier Reproduced by Directorate of History and Heritage, National Defence Headquarters Jacket: Drawing by Stéphane Geoffrion from a painting by Kenneth Forbes, 1892-1980 Canadian Artillery in Action Original Design and Production Art Global 384 Laurier Ave.West Montréal, Québec Canada H2V 2K7 Printed and bound in Canada All rights reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • Double Vision, 320 Pages
    Double Vision, 320 pages DOWNLOAD http://bit.ly/1VSpSar http://www.goodreads.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=Double+Vision Double Vision is Pat Barker's thought-provoking Booker Prize-winning novel of modern warfare. Provocative, intense and deeply moving, Double Vision is a powerful story of one man's quest to find redemption amidst the horror of twenty-first-century war. Returning to Afghanistan after his photographer friend is killed by a sniper, war reporter Stephen Sharkey seeks release from his nightmares in an England seemingly at peace with itself. Questioning man's inhumanity to man both abroad and at home, and whether love really can be the great redeemer, Double Vision is a searing novel of conflict in modern times. 'Full of brooding tension. Barker is one of our most significant contemporary novelists' Daily Telegraph 'Barker writes superbly. The reader is drawn on, from page to page' Economist 'Barker has a quite extraordinary ability to combine complexity and clarity and to make both seem parts of the same whole' Sunday Times 'The characters grab hold at the beginning and never loosen their grip. Barker holds us by the sheer beauty of her writing' Financial Times Pat Barker was born in 1943. Her books include the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy, comprising Regeneration, which has been filmed, The Eye in the Door, which won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and The Ghost Road, which won the Booker Prize. The trilogy featured the Observer's 2012 list of the ten best historical novels. She is also the author of the more recent novels Another World, Border Crossing, Double Vision, Life Class, and Toby's Room.
    [Show full text]
  • Interaction and Perception in Anglo-German Armies: 1689-1815
    Interaction and Perception in Anglo-German Armies: 1689-1815 Mark Wishon Ph.D. Thesis, 2011 Department of History University College London Gower Street London 1 I, Mark Wishon confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT Throughout the ‘long eighteenth century’ Britain was heavily reliant upon soldiers from states within the Holy Roman Empire to augment British forces during times of war, especially in the repeated conflicts with Bourbon, Revolutionary, and Napoleonic France. The disparity in populations between these two rival powers, and the British public’s reluctance to maintain a large standing army, made this external source of manpower of crucial importance. Whereas the majority of these forces were acting in the capacity of allies, ‘auxiliary’ forces were hired as well, and from the mid-century onwards, a small but steadily increasing number of German men would serve within British regiments or distinct formations referred to as ‘Foreign Corps’. Employing or allying with these troops would result in these Anglo- German armies operating not only on the European continent but in the American Colonies, Caribbean and within the British Isles as well. Within these multinational coalitions, soldiers would encounter and interact with one another in a variety of professional and informal venues, and many participants recorded their opinions of these foreign ‘brother-soldiers’ in journals, private correspondence, or memoirs. These commentaries are an invaluable source for understanding how individual Briton’s viewed some of their most valued and consistent allies – discussions that are just as insightful as comparisons made with their French enemies.
    [Show full text]
  • Villette (1853)
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Benson James, Louise T Title: Hysterical Bodies and Narratives Medical Gothic and Women’s Fiction, Victorian to Contemporary General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. Hysterical Bodies and Narratives: Medical Gothic and Women’s Fiction, Victorian to Contemporary Louise Benson James A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of PhD in the Faculty of Arts.
    [Show full text]
  • Regeneration Study Guide
    REGENERATION TEACHERS' NOTES SYNOPSIS The film 'Regeneration' is about a real life encounter that occurred at Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917 between Dr William HR Rivers (Jonathan Pryce, an army psychologist, and the poet Siegfried Sassoon (James Wilby). The story is also about the young poet Wilfred Owen (Stuart Bunce) whose support from Sassoon enabled him to write poetry encapsulating the horrors of the First World War. Rivers is tormented by doubt about the morality of what is being done in the name of medicine. The film contains vivid imagery of war and death and contrasts the devastation of war with the tenderness of another patient, Billy Prior's, love affair with Sarah a factory girl. The story questions whether those who have been broken by war - or those like Sassoon whose moral courage have removed them from the battle front - can or should achieve regeneration Director Gillies MacKinnon Certificate 15 Running time 113 mins INTRODUCTION “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse ...A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice - is often the means of their regeneration” John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) Philosopher and Economist (Taken from ‘Dissertations and Discussions-The Contest in America’ (1859) which John Stuart Mill wrote in opposition to the proposal that England should side with the slave-owning Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-1865) As we rapidly approach the end of the twentieth century two events which have taken place over the last hundred years still cast their shadow over the ways in which we think today - the First World War (1914-1918) and the Holocaust.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Group Gold
    Reading Group Gold Border Crossing A Novel by Pat Barker About this Guide The following author biography and list of questions about Border Crossing are intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach Border Crossing. ISBN: 978-0-374-70604-3 | 2007 About the Book As this dark, fast, and chilling novel begins, Tom Seymour, a clinical psychiatrist specializing in violent children, rescues a young man who has fallen into the river near Tom’s home in northern England. The young man turns out to be Danny Miller, whom Tom met in a professional capacity thirteen years earlier, when Danny was only ten. In fact, Tom had testified at Danny’s murder trial—and it was his expert opinion that effectively put Danny behind bars. Now Danny is back in Tom’s life, but this reunion really a coinci- dence? And was Tom correct in affirming, all those years ago, that Danny knew right from wrong, knew the implications of his actions, and knew he was committing murder? And what exactly does Danny want from Tom, now that Tom has agreed to help him sort out his troubled past? Border Crossing is a disturbing yet subtle psychological thriller that explores the nature of evil, the possibility of redemption, and the often overlapping problems of truth and identity. Praise “A sparse, headstrong writer whose style is bulletproof modern…[Border Crossing is] chilling and psych- logically persuasive… [Barker’s] unadorned prose delivers a punch when you’re not looking…as frighten- ing as it wise.”—Gail Caldwell, Boston Sunday Globe “Barker creates a sense of menace worthy of Ian McEwan…Border Crossing is replete with sharp, ex- pressive exchanges, hard poetry, and as many enigmas as implacable truths.”— Kerry Fried, The Atlantic Monthly “Barker can tell a story with the verve of a seasoned mystery writer.
    [Show full text]
  • Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation Asian History
    3 ASIAN HISTORY Porter & Porter and the American Occupation II War World on Reflections Japanese Edgar A. Porter and Ran Ying Porter Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation Asian History The aim of the series is to offer a forum for writers of monographs and occasionally anthologies on Asian history. The Asian History series focuses on cultural and historical studies of politics and intellectual ideas and crosscuts the disciplines of history, political science, sociology and cultural studies. Series Editor Hans Hägerdal, Linnaeus University, Sweden Editorial Board Members Roger Greatrex, Lund University Angela Schottenhammer, University of Salzburg Deborah Sutton, Lancaster University David Henley, Leiden University Japanese Reflections on World War II and the American Occupation Edgar A. Porter and Ran Ying Porter Amsterdam University Press Cover illustration: 1938 Propaganda poster “Good Friends in Three Countries” celebrating the Anti-Comintern Pact Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 94 6298 259 8 e-isbn 978 90 4853 263 6 doi 10.5117/9789462982598 nur 692 © Edgar A. Porter & Ran Ying Porter / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: Questions of Class in the Contemporary British Novel
    Notes Introduction: Questions of Class in the Contemporary British Novel 1. Martin Amis, London Fields (New York: Harmony Books, 1989), 24. 2. The full text of Tony Blair’s 1999 speech can be found at http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/460009.stm (accessed on December 9, 2008). 3. Terry Eagleton, After Theory (New York: Perseus Books, 2003), 16. 4. Ibid. 5. Peter Hitchcock, “ ‘They Must Be Represented’: Problems in Theories of Working-Class Representation,” PMLA Special Topic: Rereading Class 115 no. 1 January (2000): 20. Savage, Bagnall, and Longhurst have also pointed out that “Over the past twenty-five years, this sense that the working class ‘matters’ has ebbed. It is now difficult to detect sustained research interest in the nature of working class culture” (97). 6. Gary Day, Class (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 202. This point is also echoed by Ebert and Zavarzadeh: “By advancing singularity, hetero- geneity, anti-totality, and supplementarity, for instance, deconstruction has, among other things, demolished ‘history’ itself as an articulation of class relations. In doing so, it has constructed a cognitive environment in which the economic interests of capital are seen as natural and not the effect of a particular historical situation. Deconstruction continues to produce some of the most effective discourses to normalize capitalism and contribute to the construction of a capitalist-friendly cultural common sense . .” (8). 7. Slavoj Žižek, In Defence of Lost Causes (London and New York: Verso, 2008), 404–405 (Hereafter, Lost Causes). 8. Andrew Milner, Class (London: Sage, 1999), 9. 9. Gavin Keulks, ed., Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 73.
    [Show full text]
  • The Revival of the Satiric Spirit in Contemporary British Fiction1
    The Revival of the Satiric Spirit in Contemporary British Fiction1 Luis Alberto Lázaro Lafuente University of Alcalá Satiric novels have traditionally been regarded as a minor form by many critics and scholars. Aristotle had already referred to the satirists as "the more trivial" poets who wrote about the actions of meaner~persons, in stark contrast to the "more serious-minded" epic poets who represented noble actions and the lives of noble people (1965: 35-36). This attitude has persisted throughout many centuries in the history of English literature. Even though satire enjoyed its golden age in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially with the poetry of such distinguished writers as Dryden or Pope, satiric compositions in prose did not really achieve the same high position2• When with time the novel became a well• established genre, it was mainly naturalistic fiction and psychological stories that commonly attained a prominent status among the literary critics, whereas the comic and satiric novel, with a few exceptions, was relegated to a status of popular prose on the fringe of the canon, or even outside it. Indeed, in the twentieth century, several prestigious authors have offered a rather gloomy picture of the state of novelistic satire. Robert C. Elliott, for instance, said in 1960 that the great literary figures of this century were not "preeminently satirists" (1970: 223); and Patricia Meyer Spacks, in her artide "Some Reflections on Satire" first published in 1968, even stated that satiric novel s by authors such I Some ideas oí this paper have already appeared in my essay "El espíritu satírico en la novela británica contemporánea: Menipo redivivo", included in the volume edited by Fernando Galván Már• genes y centros en la literatura británica actual.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Anger in Contemporary British Women's Working-Class Fiction
    0 'The Red Light of Emotion'. Reading Anger in Contemporary British Women's Working-Class Fiction Patricia Ann Wheeler A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Hertfordshire for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The programme of research was carried out in the School of Humanities, Faculty of Humanities, Law and Education, University of Hertfordshire November 2004 Contents Acknowledgments i Abstract ii Introduction Realism and Representation:Women and the Working-Class Novel Pages1-36 Chapter I Anger and Anxiety: Gender and Sexuality in Working-Class Writing Pages37-69 Chapter 2 'An Orange Flame of Rage': Writing with a Vengeance Pages 70-101 Chapter 3 Pat Barker: The Reclamation of Anger Pages102-133 Chapter 4 Anger and Sexual Transgression: Pat Barker's The Man Who Wasn't There Pages 134-169 Chapter 5 Masculinity and Class Antagonism: Billy Prior, Working-Class Hero Pages170-198 Chapter 6 Anger and Alienation: Livi Michael's Invisible Women Pages199-227 Chapter 7 Angry Young Women: Recent Feminist Fictions Pages228- 256 Bibliography Pages 257- 277 i Acknowledgments With very grateful thanks to my two supervisors Dr Nahem Yousaf at Nottingham Trent University and Dr Sharon Monteith at the University of Nottingham (both formerly of the University of Hertfordshire). I fully acknowledge their academic guidance, their rigorous attention to the work in progress and their unfailing support and patience throughout the research and writing of this thesis. I hope they know how much their friendship and guidance means to me. I also thank David Wheeler for his continuing support and for finding the latest IT gadgetsto help in my writing, and for Emily and Benjamin Wheeler for trying to keep me on track.
    [Show full text]
  • Charcot and the Idea of Hysteria in the Male: Gender, Mental Science, and Medical Diagnosis in Late Nineteenth-Century France
    Medical History, 1990, 34: 363-411. CHARCOT AND THE IDEA OF HYSTERIA IN THE MALE: GENDER, MENTAL SCIENCE, AND MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE by MARK S. MICALE * On concede qu'un jeune homme effemine puisse apres des exces, des chagrins, des emotions profondes, presenter quelques phenomenes hysteriformes; mais qu'un artisan vigoureux, solide, non enerve par la culture, un chauffeur de locomotive par exemple, nullement emotif auparavant, du moins en apparence, puisse... devenir hysterique, au meme titre qu'une femme, voila, parait-il, qui depasse l'imagination. Rien n'est mieux prouve, cependant, et c'est une idee a laquelle il faudra se faire. Charcot (1885) Hysteria is among the oldest recorded diagnostic categories of neurosis. Through a long and exotic evolution, the popular and medical understanding of the disorder has changed greatly. However, one feature of hysteria has remained constant: since classical times, hysteria has been understood as an affliction essentially of adult women and adolescent girls. If we know anything about the disorder, we are likely to know that it relates etymologically to the Greek word hystera or uterus. In Graeco-Roman medical literature, hysteria-or at least something that many latter-day commentators have interpreted as hysteria-was believed to develop when the female reproductive system was inactive or ungratified over time. In Plato's Timaeus and certain Hippocratic texts, we find graphic descriptions of the uterus as a restless animal, raging through the female body due to unnatural prolonged continence and giving rise to a bizarre series of symptoms, including a sensation of suffocation, heart palpitations, and loss of voice.
    [Show full text]
  • The Silence of the Girls Readers' Guide
    Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 Reading Group Guide Also by Pat Barker: The Eye in the Door Union Street (1982) (1993) The Silence of the Girls Blow Your House Down The Ghost Road (1995) (1984) Another World (1998) by Pat Barker The Century’s Daughter Border Crossing (2001) (1986) Double Vision (2003) Hamish Hamilton The Man Who Wasn’t Life Class (2007) There (1988) Toby’s Room (2012) Regeneration (1991) Noonday (2015) About the book There was a woman at the heart of the Trojan war whose voice has been silent – till now. Briseis was a queen until her city was destroyed. Now she is slave to Achilles, the man who butchered her husband and brothers. Trapped in a world defined by men, can she survive to become the author of her own story? Discover the greatest Greek myth of all – retold by the witness history forgot. About the author Pat Barker was born in Yorkshire and began her literary career in her forties, when she took a short writing course taught by Angela Carter. Encouraged by Carter to continue writing and exploring the lives of working class women, she sent her fiction out to publishers. Thirty-five years later, she has published fifteen novels, including her masterfulRegeneration Trilogy, been made a CBE for services to literature, and won awards including the Guardian Fiction Prize and the UK’s highest literary honour, the Booker Prize. She lives in Durham and her latest novel is The Silence of the Girls. womensprizeforfiction.co.uk readinggroups.org read – The Reading Agency Ltd • Registered number: 3904882 (England & Wales) Questions and discussion points 1.
    [Show full text]