Be a Good Soldier
Children's Grief in English Modernist Novels
Published on 12. November 2011
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-4426-4313-0 (ISBN)
Description
In the modern era, children experiencing grief were encouraged to dry their tears and 'be good soldiers.' How was this phenomenon interrogated and deconstructed in the period's literature? Be a Good Soldier initiates conversation on the figure of the child in modernist novels, investigating the demand for emotional suppression as manifested later in cruelty and aggression in adulthood.
Jennifer Margaret Fraser provides sophisticated close readings of key works by Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, among others who share striking concerns about the concept of infantry - both as a collection of infants, and as foot soldiers of war. A phenomenon associated traditionally with Freud, Fraser instead uses a unique, Derridean theoretical prism to provide new ways of understanding modernist concerns with power dynamics, knowledge, and meaning. Be a Good Soldier establishes a pioneering, nuanced vocabulary for further historical and cultural inquiries into modernist childhood.
Jennifer Margaret Fraser provides sophisticated close readings of key works by Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce, among others who share striking concerns about the concept of infantry - both as a collection of infants, and as foot soldiers of war. A phenomenon associated traditionally with Freud, Fraser instead uses a unique, Derridean theoretical prism to provide new ways of understanding modernist concerns with power dynamics, knowledge, and meaning. Be a Good Soldier establishes a pioneering, nuanced vocabulary for further historical and cultural inquiries into modernist childhood.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
517 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4426-4313-0 (9781442643130)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jennifer Margaret Fraser holds a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Toronto.
Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction Children's Grief: The Return from Exile
Chapter One Translating the Foreign Language of Childhood Grief:Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes
Chapter Two Childhood Grief as Resident Alien in Jean Rhys' Five Novellas
Chapter Three Grieving the Child of the Shell-Shocked Soldier in Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier
Chapter Four Childhood Grief on the Home-Front: Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier and Parade's End
Chapter Five Creating a Space for Childhood's Sound Waves: Virginia Woolf's A Haunted House and The Waves
Chapter Six The "Laughtears" of the Child Be Longing: James Joyce's Finnegans Wake
Conclusion Creating Fictional Space for the Grief of the Child
Notes
Bibliography
Introduction Children's Grief: The Return from Exile
Chapter One Translating the Foreign Language of Childhood Grief:Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes
Chapter Two Childhood Grief as Resident Alien in Jean Rhys' Five Novellas
Chapter Three Grieving the Child of the Shell-Shocked Soldier in Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier
Chapter Four Childhood Grief on the Home-Front: Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier and Parade's End
Chapter Five Creating a Space for Childhood's Sound Waves: Virginia Woolf's A Haunted House and The Waves
Chapter Six The "Laughtears" of the Child Be Longing: James Joyce's Finnegans Wake
Conclusion Creating Fictional Space for the Grief of the Child
Notes
Bibliography