Recently for class we read Male Hysteria and analyzed The Return of the Soldier based on it. This was an interesting experience, as I’ve never analyzed two texts in such an interconnected way for a class before. The connections me and my classmates made were really interesting, but I had some issues connecting the two texts completely. I read Male Hysteria first, but since I read The Return of the Soldier second, I missed a lot of the parts of the first text that would have been important to the second. Ideally I could have read Male Hysteria again, but unfortunately I didn’t have the time to. I suppose in the future I could make more extensive notes on the texts I’m reading, so I don’t miss anything.
That’s interesting what you say, MK, about the process of reading linked texts. The idea behind reading Showalter first was to get a sense of the cultural/gendered aspects of shell shock, which would then make Chris’s experience begin to make more sense. However, I can see how the opposite could also work. Ultimately, of course, your goal is to use Showalter to serve your analysis of West, so whatever you need to do for that to happen is best!