VI.34.561 “----then we’ll demolish the mole ... and having done that, corporal, we’ll embark for England.----We are there quoth the corporal, recollecting himself----Very true, said my uncle Toby....looking at the church.” Uncle Toby and his man servant had recreated a model of a siege in Flanders on the disused Bowling Green on the former’s estate in England, and, had entered so much into it they had, in effect been living, imaginatively, in that other place until brought back abruptly by the corporal’s comment. This scene describes a common phenomenon; living out a past experience in another place and time. This can extend to recreating as much as possible that other place where we are now living. So, across the world there are pockets of foreign countries in every city where people have moved for various reasons and recreated a Little Wales in Patagonia, a Little Jewry in London, and a Little Russia in the Crimea. On a personal level we all tend to live in he past to various extents, and, in any case use our previous experience, perhaps in a different place, to help us understand and cope with the present. Here, the purpose is therapeutic, as uncle Toby, was afflicted with a depression associated with a debilitating wound incurred at the siege being replicated. After any war, casualties often need mental and spiritual rehabilitation as well as physical, as the damage inflicted is deeper than the exterior manifestation. Only now, 100 years later, can we begin to fully appreciate the mental and spiritual legacy of the first world war.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 06:25:59 +0000
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