ORCID
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4611-2505
Date of Award
9-5-2023
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Type
Dissertation
Abstract
“Hell Shock” argues that imperial rhetoric shaped the way Britain framed its mission in the First and Second World Wars. I contend that Britain’s wartime propaganda took strategies from colonialism, employing narratives long used to justify the imperial project to rationalize war. Many writers participated in propaganda, but others—both British and colonial—crafted counter-narratives to expose the insidious relationship between colonial and wartime rhetoric, ultimately revealing the hypocrisies of the imperial system. While a recent wave of world war scholarship has begun to acknowledge colonial writings, I advance beyond the current tendency of studying colonialism as a discrete subject separate from the European experience. Instead, my research compares British and colonial writers to argue that imperial positions are essential to all literature of the world wars. Canonical British writers were part of the British Empire no less than writers from the colonies, and these comparisons afford a more accurate understanding of the political position—and potential resistance—of all writers. Ultimately, I argue that we can only grasp the imperial effects and global significance of the world wars by tackling this most radical postcolonial challenge: recognizing all experiences of war as experiences of empire. My dissertation contains four chapters, each addressing a shared rhetoric of war and imperialism that writers critique as they expose Britain’s wartime claims. Each chapter centers on a different preposition—before, below, between, and beyond—that identifies a particular form of Britain’s rhetoric: temporality, hierarchy, polarity, and spirituality. In resisting each of these forms of rhetoric, the writers I study rely on the afterlife, which Britain employed in its imperial and wartime projects by framing itself as a divine authority against demonic colonial subjects or infernal German enemies. My title thus plays on “shell shock” to emphasize how writers reverse this propaganda and reveal the profound hypocrisies of the British Empire. These writers employ literary counter-narratives, which I term “hell shock,” to assert that Britain creates infernos, not paradises. By comparing British and colonial writers from both wars and exploring a particular dimension of the afterlife, each chapter uncovers literature’s indictment of the propaganda of Britain. These works challenge us to reckon with the insidious imperial rhetoric of the world wars at last and acknowledge the role of literature in resisting dominant narratives that rationalize the violence of war and empire.
Language
English (en)
Chair and Committee
Vincent Sherry
Recommended Citation
Thompson, Matthew Robert, "Hell Shock: Colonialism, the World Wars, and the Underworlding of the British Empire" (2023). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3151.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/3151