Existential Meaninglessness and Meaningfulness in Rebecca West’s the Return of the Soldier: An Existential Psychotherapeutic Study

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The quest for meaning in life has always constituted a big portion of literature. Having Existential dimensions that investigate the big questions of human existence such as death, isolation, freedom and meaning, some literary works like Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier (1918) launch human being’s search for a meaning of existence in realm of disorders at two levels; one is internal that comes from amnesia and neurosis, and the other is external chaos that is rendered from war and violence. Written during war and as an exploration of war consequences of familial disorder and psychological disability, the novel sketches Chris as an existential sufferer whose existence, due to shellshock and memory loss of fifteen years, lacks a firm ground and a concrete sense of meaning, therefore gets into trouble from perceiving his social roles in his return to his family from war. As a defence mechanism and a replacement to his existential vacuum that is a painful sense of void and meaninglessness, Chris pleas into indulging with amnestic fantasy and re-establishes a lost relationship with a married lady once over whose love temporally mitigates his suffering. The Existential dimension of the novel comes from Chris’s re-embracement of the painfulness of reality by bringing back his memory and living in the temporality of the present being. Therapy in the novel is not too sharp, as it is implied by exorcising the lost dreams of Chris’s past life; and based on his acceptance to the reality of his life, amongst it is the death of his son, comes the construction of new paradigms of therapy. This study, entitled ‘Existential Meaninglessness and Meaningfulness in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier: An Existential Psychotherapeutic Study’ investigates the novel’s elucidations of existential vacuum, meaninglessness, and void in relation to memory loss, and then it portrays how human being is capable to make meaning in his own life. The theoretical method of the inquiry in this study is Existential psychotherapy, which is a contemporary approach blended of psychoanalysis and philosophy, mainly inspired by Existentialism. Precisely, amongst Existential psychologists, the focus of the analytical model is thrown on Irvin Yalom (1931-?) who has gained a huge admiration for his scholarly contribution in the field.