Elinor Past And Reality Essay

Looking at the past becomes something that at one point needs to be limited, or it can overshadow the reality of the present. Elinor becomes rather entranced in the pleasure of looking in retrospect, and becomes captivated and makes the mistake of substituting it as being the present reality, which of course is not. One example is when Elinor is reflecting on the relationship between her and Catherine when she states “Of course it’s not bad all the time. Sometimes in the evening when we’re sitting by the fire in our nightgowns it’s exactly the way it used to be. But we talk too much about old times” (239). Thus, Elinor, although having the opportunity of speaking on the present or future, along with her friend, dwells on “old times.” In addition, close to the end of the novel, Elinor expresses to Paul “ ‘The other day I realized -- this is going to sound really mad -- what I really think, deep down, is that the dead are only dead for the duration. When it’s over they’ll all come back and it’ll be just the same as it was before’ ” (297). Therefore, the reality is overshadowed by past, which produces nostalgia and ultimately …show more content…
One of the conflicts of the novel is that the present is too problematic to deal with, and Elinor resorts to the past in order for the present to be bearable. Zacharoula Christoupolou in the article “The Literature and Memory of World War I. Remarque, Aldington, and Myrivilis: Fictionalizing the Great War” reveals that “ novels become a place on which to expose conflict, but also come to terms with it” (10). One of the conflicts in this novel becomes the reality that Elinor is experiencing, which she finds a solution through by dwelling in nostalgia. In other words, the present reality is exchanged through the procedure of nostalgia into an almost alternative reality, which is a product of her dealing process and coming to terms with the conflict -- the