Suffering In Rebecca West's 'Return Of The Soldier'

Throughout life, all people encounter some form of suffering, whether it is daily inconveniences or life altering issues. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud argues that this suffering is inevitable, however, people will try many methods to end this suffering but all will prove to be unsuccessful. One of the ways in which Freud believes people try to escape suffering is through altering their reality and surroundings to mimic a world that is happy. Rebecca West’s novel, Return of the Soldier, greatly supports Freud’s claim and further portrays the outcomes of people's reality when their way of coping with suffering ultimately fails. In Return of the Solider, Jenny, Kitty, and Chris attempt to alter their reality by using superficial

Jenny’s illusion is focused on the materialistic beauty of the house, and the beauty that other people’s relationship has. Throughout the first few pages of West’s novel, Return of the Soldier, Jenny introduces the home that Kitty, Chris, and her all live in together. She gives details of the home with content splendor, stating they all feel happy there, and how her and Kitty try to make the home as nice as possible for Chris. However, this feeling of happiness is proven to be a mask over their true reality. Jenny gives insight into this fake happiness when she describes the work that she and Kitty put in to build their home into the fancy and highly decorated place that it is, stating how she and Kitty “recovered” things from “antiquity” and “dug” things from the “obscure pits of modern craftsmanship” (6, West). Kitty and Jenny also “solemnly” chose their fabrics, meaning they wholeheartedly invested themselves into small details. such as fabric, so they could “shed warmth like sunshine” and further portray their illusion of happiness and beauty (6, West). Jenny also states how “spending” now seems “disgraceful,” and this shows how she may feel shame toward how much work and money she and Kitty put into building their illusion, almost as if deep down she knows it will not last this early in the novel. This feeling of shame further portrays the lack of value beauty has, as it does not add happiness to people’s lives, it adds superficiality and serves only as a momentary distraction from reality. This highlights Freud’s concept of inevitable suffering because, even while Jenny and Kitty are building their illusion, Jenny still feels the suffering of the work it took to build their illusion. Later in the novel, Jenny describes their house as “not so much a house as a vast piece of space partitioned off from the universe and decorated partly for beauty and partly to make our privacy