Struggling to Remember
127
Shellshock, as a mode o f bodily expression, converts fear and mental trauma into
palpable manifestations. Shell shock, an amalgam o f physical and psychological
elements, contributed to the production o f symptoms such as mutism, stammering,
twitching, paralysis, nightmares, and hallucinations (Furst 169).
^ Paul Baumer welcomes death at the end o f his narrative because there is nothing to go
back to, no way to adjust to a society which exalts bravery, heroism, and military victory
over life itself
^ Fforde also incorporates the emasculating amputations that plagued survivors o f the
Great War into his narrative through Landen, who loses a leg but returns alive. Fforde
does not seem to place the same emphasis o f loss o f ^^dloleness and masculinity on
Landen’s war wound that many contemporary writers focused on, but his wooden leg
does serve as a constant, insuppressible reminder o f Landen’s participation in the war and
the loss and pain that it engendered.
^ Regina Roybal argues that Tennyson and Russell (a news correspondent wlio covered
the Crimean War), to a certain extent, use the occasion o f the charge to place honor iq)on
men wiio had seemed to deserve scorn, to glorify a class o f men wiio previously had not
seemed to deserve their station in life. Tennyson’s poem is an attempt to restore the
heroic image o f the cavahy and o f the aristocracy. Tennyson’s “Charge o f the Light
Brigade”: A Historical Perspective. May 2001. Unpublished essay.
g
Natalie Houston explains this trend in revising literature best in her article “Reading the
Victorian Souvenir.” She states, “[In] the Crimean War, ^\diich can be understood as the
first truly modem British w a r . . . hi response to the swell o f public opinion, British poets
and artists produced a great number o f patriotic works dealing with the Crimea. Most o f
these are today forgotten, except perhaps for Tennyson’s ‘The Charge o f the Light
Brigade.’ A s public support for the war dwindled towards its conclusion and thereafter,
Tennyson’s, and other artists’, enthusiasm for the war despite its horrors soon came to be
seen as an embarrassment” (354). Tennyson revised the poem several times as new
newspaper reports and firsthand accounts became available and as public sentiment
shifted.
9
See “Jessica Lynch: Media Myth-Making in the haq War” on Joumalism.org, for an
interesting day by day reconstmctive study o f how the story o f Lynch’s capture and
rescue evolved and mutated in the news media during the weeks following the break o f
the story. Available at . 2/4/2005.
^Interestingly, Anton is one letter o ff from being an anagram to Nolan. Given Fforde’s
savvy word play, it seems fairly plausible that Anton’s fate is base