“Well-Remembered Voices”: Mourning and Spirit Communication in Barrie’s and Kipling’s First World War Narratives

Abstract

The sun glints on the ice of a pond as two strapping lads skate, or rather one skates while the other critiques the performance, as they have only one pair of skates between them. When the second boy, dark-haired and flush, dons the skates, his hands fumble with the buckles. In a flash he is up and off at high speed, careening around and returning to the first, named David, who laughs at his friend’s antics, until he bears down on him, unable to stop, and knocks David to the ice.

“In the silence something happens. A well-remembered voice says, ‘Father.’ Mr. Don looks into the greyness from which this voice comes and he sees his son. We see no one, but we are to understand that, to Mr. Don, Dick is standing there in his habit as he lived. He goes to his boy.”

Barrie, “A Well-Remembered Voice” (1918)

“My name, my speech, my self I had forgot.

My wife and children came — I knew them not.

I died. My Mother followed. At her call

And on her bosom I remembered all.”

Kipling, “Shock” from Epitaphs of the War (1919)