Memory, narrative and The Great War: Rifleman Patrick MacGill and the Construction of Wartime Experience

Memory, Narrative and the Great War examines the varied and complex war writings of Patrick MacGill within a contemporary framework. It shows how MacGill shifted from heroic wartime narratives in his autobiographical writings to the pessimistic, guilt-ridden characters in his postwar novel, Fear!, and play, Suspense. Using these texts to show how MacGill remembered and re-remembered his wartime experiences, it analyzes MacGill’s writings with implications for a broader interpretation of Great War literature, highlighting wartime memory and narrative as an ever-changing kaleidoscope in which pieces of memory take on different—but equally valid—shapes with the passing of time.