Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)

Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)

In The Return of the Soldier (1918),Rebecca West questions the predominance of conformity in a society stifled by norms, codes and class, as Chris Baldry, a soldier suffering from shell-shock, struggles to recover his memory. Focusing first on the tensions between the normal and the exception, a par...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alice Borrego
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2020-03-01
Series:Études Britanniques Contemporaines
Subjects:
exception
norms
conformity
normality
exclusion
oppression
Online Access:http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/8067
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spelling doaj-c6b600eaadec4e75af1c07c6dc0660a62020-11-25T03:17:32ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeÉtudes Britanniques Contemporaines1168-49172020-03-015810.4000/ebc.8067Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)Alice BorregoIn The Return of the Soldier (1918),Rebecca West questions the predominance of conformity in a society stifled by norms, codes and class, as Chris Baldry, a soldier suffering from shell-shock, struggles to recover his memory. Focusing first on the tensions between the normal and the exception, a particular attention will be brought to the exception as a source of exclusion (looking here at the etymology of exception, ex-cipio to take out, to exclude), insofar as Chris’s wife and cousin, are ‘cut off’ (57) from his amnesiac life. This segmentarity of exception will lead me to address exception as part of a rhetoric of omission (ex-cipio: to leave out) which reveals West’s deft criticism of normative and oppressive discourses.http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/8067exceptionnormsconformitynormalityexclusionoppression
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Alice Borrego
spellingShingle Alice Borrego
Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)
Études Britanniques Contemporaines
exception
norms
conformity
normality
exclusion
oppression
author_facet Alice Borrego
author_sort Alice Borrego
title Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)
title_short Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)
title_full Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)
title_fullStr Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)
title_full_unstemmed Against the Norm: Exception as a Disruptive Force in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918)
title_sort against the norm: exception as a disruptive force in rebecca west’s the return of the soldier (1918)
publisher Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
series Études Britanniques Contemporaines
issn 1168-4917
publishDate 2020-03-01
description In The Return of the Soldier (1918),Rebecca West questions the predominance of conformity in a society stifled by norms, codes and class, as Chris Baldry, a soldier suffering from shell-shock, struggles to recover his memory. Focusing first on the tensions between the normal and the exception, a particular attention will be brought to the exception as a source of exclusion (looking here at the etymology of exception, ex-cipio to take out, to exclude), insofar as Chris’s wife and cousin, are ‘cut off’ (57) from his amnesiac life. This segmentarity of exception will lead me to address exception as part of a rhetoric of omission (ex-cipio: to leave out) which reveals West’s deft criticism of normative and oppressive discourses.
topic exception
norms
conformity
normality
exclusion
oppression
url http://journals.openedition.org/ebc/8067
work_keys_str_mv AT aliceborrego againstthenormexceptionasadisruptiveforceinrebeccaweststhereturnofthesoldier1918
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