Making Trauma Visible: Representations of Shell Shock and War Trauma in Films about the First World War

Abstract

Mental illness has historically been stigmatised as something associated with a weakness of character and ‘femininity.’ During the First World War, doctors began to encounter large numbers of soldiers exhibiting hitherto unseen physical and psychological disorders resulting from combat activity. These disorders came to be known under the umbrella term of ‘shell shock,’ and were often considered to be the product of weakness, cowardice, and a lack of masculine fortitude. The social outlook for a man returning from the Great War with shell shock was bleak. The attitudes of the military toward mental illness only served to exacerbate the stigma attached to those suffering from the psychological effects of shell shock. Popular culture, however, took a more sympathetic approach. Cinema played an important role in unpacking social and political issues surrounding shell shock and the returned soldier. My thesis examines films about the Great War from the past one hundred years to highlight the enduring consequences of the war for soldiers, their families, and societies. In three case studies I assess the way the cinema of the twentieth century used the shell-shocked soldier as a powerful anti-war symbol in its attempt to remove some of the condition’s social stigma. I also examine the way representations of shell shock have changed over time, particularly in recent years, as advances in the fields of psychiatry and psychology have deepened our understanding of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.