In The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, Chris Baldry is a formerly carefree, imaginative, romantic who spent his days without much responsibility but instead with his lover, Margaret. His father took care of his business and kept the family financially comfortable. After the passing of his father, Chris took on the family business and was unexpectedly thrust into the role of financial provider for the women in his family; this included marrying a woman deemed appropriate for his social status. After being shipped off to war, he sustains an injury that leaves him with no memory of the last fifteen years of his life. He comes home and is shocked to find that everything has changed, and he is especially displeased with the way his home, Baldry Court, has changed so much. Kitty, Chris’s wife, and Jenny, Chris’s cousin, discover that they were not notified when Chris was wounded in the war because he had never registered his home address with the war office. This could be interpreted as him not being happy with his life at Baldry Court and rejecting the societal role he was forced to fill. In the novel, The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West uses the setting, Baldry Court, as a way to show that Chris is unhappy with his life and rejects the role he was forced to play in society.

There are several key moments in this novel that revolve around the setting of the story, Baldry Court, that reflect Chris’s deep unhappiness with the current state of his life. West describes Baldry Court as a pristine place in which every inch was carefully designed and landscaped as a form of control. Wildness does not belong here. Baldry Court was designed with luxury in mind, as well. This was done as a way of pronouncing the Baldry family’s status. Baldry Court in all its grandiosity is a constant reminder in Chris’s life of his status and the expectations that come out of it. After his stay at the hospital, he returns home, and everything is unfamiliar and scary. The blue blinds in the drawing-room that block the outside world make the house seem like a prison. Because of his amnesia, he is trying to make sense of the changes he sees around him. West writes, “Dipping his head, he would glance sideways at the old oak paneling…It was his furtiveness that was heartrending; it was as though he were an outcast, and we who loved him stout policemen” (27). It can be interpreted that he may perceive his wife and cousin as jailers, or people holding him hostage in this role in life, and that he cannot break free from the oppression of who he is expected to be.

This extravagant estate is far removed from the former playground of Chris’s youth: Monkey Island. Monkey Island was the backdrop to Chris and Margaret’s love for each other, and they spent much time gallivanting around the island and all its untamed beauty. On this island, Chris was free to be whoever he wanted. He was at liberty to love Margaret fully and freely, regardless of social class. Monkey Island was a stark contrast to the sleek aesthetic of Baldry Court: “In this gentle jungle was a rustic seat, relic of a reckless aspiration …” (West 38). Here, Chris found joy in the “wildness” of his obligation-free life. Monkey Island is where Chris was unrestricted, and, therefore, truly happy, so he tries to find the places in Baldry Court that remind him of that. 

Chris spends his adult life actively trying to reject Baldry Court and everything it stands for. Not telling the war office that he has a home to go back to should he be injured is a strong indication that Chris does not consider Baldry Court to be his true home. This is evidenced by the way he flees all areas of the grounds that have the marks of “Kitty’s genius” upon his arrival back to the estate. These places remind him of his responsibilities and obligations not only to his family, but to society. He takes comfort in the spots that are “wild” and remind him of Monkey Island. These places remind him a happier time in his life when he did not have to hide his true self. 

Rebecca West, through her portrayal of a man struggling with his identity, creates a strong indictment of the gender roles that structured British society during World War I. This novel highlights the consequences of forcing men into a rigid role that requires them to repress their emotions and be a strong, authoritative figure. Young Chris is a jovial man but as he is forced to grow up, he is pressured to lose all aspects of his boyhood in order to be respected as a man. To be respected as a man in this society, he needs to stifle his imaginative, romantic, true self and become detached and dominating in every aspect of his life. This is an issue that is still incredibly prevalent in today’s society. Traditional gender roles, like the ones that trapped Chris Baldry, plague and repress modern men. Often times, people do not view the man’s role in society as something that is harmful to men because men tend to benefit from this. However, West shows us that when men are forced into a box, their mental health can suffer. Today, men’s mental health is often overlooked because people perceive it as a nonissue; men are supposed to be strong, so they cannot have mental health issues. Chris’s mental health issues were brushed off as shellshock. Elaine Showalter writes, “For most, however, the anguish of shell shock included more general but intense anxieties about masculinity, fears of acting effeminate, even a refusal to continue the bluff of stoic male behavior” (172). Showalter suggests that the diagnosis of “shell shock” associated with war trauma could actually be rooted in deeper anxieties about the expectations of men in society. Perhaps Chris had been putting on a façade of the tough, strong, emotionless man he was expected to be. This is an example of how men’s mental health suffers when it is discounted. This illustrates how gender roles negatively impact everyone in society, and perhaps how society would benefit by working against them.