The Return of the Soldier: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Return of the Soldier" is a poignant exploration of memory, love, and duty set against the backdrop of World War I. The narrative centers on Chris Baldry, a thirty-five-year-old English gentleman who experiences amnesia following a war injury, forgetting all but his first love, Margaret Allington Grey. As Chris reconnects with Margaret, who has faced her own hardships, their rekindled romance serves as a refuge from his grim reality. However, their relationship also highlights the tensions between personal desires and societal obligations, particularly when Chris's memories ultimately return, prompting his return to his wife, Kitty Baldry. Kitty, who is portrayed as beautiful yet superficial, grapples with her own grief after losing their child, leading to a strained marriage. The story is narrated by Jenny, Chris’s perceptive cousin, who provides insight into the evolving dynamics among the characters, particularly her growing admiration for Margaret and disillusionment with Kitty. Through its multifaceted characters, the work delves into themes of loss, memory, and the complexities of love, inviting readers to contemplate the impact of war on human relationships.
The Return of the Soldier: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Rebecca West
First published: 1918
Genre: Novel
Locale: Southern England
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: World War I
Chris Baldry, a thirty-five-year-old English country gentleman who is attractive and fair-complected, with brown and gold hair. Charming, honorable, and amiable, he has left his wife and cousin Jenny home at Baldry Court in the south of England to become a soldier in France during World War I. Fifteen years earlier, after the death of his father, Chris was given a large estate, along with the “responsibility of” his many female relatives. He married a beautiful but ostentatious woman and, several years later, suffered the death of their only child, a two-year-old boy named Oliver. The story begins when Chris is fighting in the trenches during the war. He suffers an injury that results in a memory loss that erases everyone from his mind save the woman whom he loved as a young man fifteen years earlier and whom circumstances had caused him to lose. From a military hospital, he writes to her; consequently, she informs his family of his whereabouts. When he returns home to Baldry Court, he demands to see her. Her subsequent periodic visits are his only joy and reality, and their love for each other remains fresh and genuine. It is her generous spirit and his sense of duty to his family that ultimately bring back his memory and the end of their relationship, if not their love. His return to the trenches of Flanders is ensured.
Margaret Allington Grey, the first and only real love in Chris's life. Thirty-three years old, she is plain, with tender gray eyes and fair, curly hair, and she has aged considerably since her love affair with Chris fifteen years earlier. For the past ten years, she has been living a life of dreary poverty with a nondescript husband in an ugly working-class town. Like Chris, she has suffered the death of a two-year-old son, and later she notes that both she and Chris were unable to have a “complete child.” It is she to whom Chris writes of his war injuries. After she informs Chris's family of his condition, her love and concern motivate her to visit Chris at Baldry Court. When she was eighteen years old, she had been living on Monkey Island with her father, where the two of them had kept an inn. When Chris rowed by one day, they were attracted immediately to each other; both loved the sights and scents and sounds of nature. Similarly, fifteen years later, when they are reunited on the lawn of Baldry Court, they often commune with one another wordlessly. Margaret brings this series of visits to an end by suggesting and carrying out the plan that ends Chris's amnesia and thereby forces his unwilling return to his wife and worldly responsibilities.
Kitty Baldry, the wife of Chris Baldry, who lost her son five years earlier. Beautiful and gentle but vain and materialistic, Kitty spends her days improving the quality of Baldry Court with elegant touches. The degree of her sensitivity to her son's death is seen in her use of his sunny nursery as the room where she drys her hair. Her first encounter with Margaret is marked by disdain for the latter's shabby appearance and lower-class address. Her response to her husband's amnesia is one of annoyance rather than concern for his well-being. When his memory finally returns after Margaret's intervention, her response is not joy or relief but mere satisfaction.
Jenny, a thirty-five-year-old, unmarried cousin of Chris and friend of Kitty. She lives at Baldry Court and narrates the story. Jenny was the childhood playmate of Chris and has loved and revered him ever since. More perceptive and high-principled than Kitty, she comes to love and admire the saintly Margaret as the story progresses, while her opinion of Kitty deteriorates.