Susan Hill, Strange Meeting

Gina Wisker (University of Brighton)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Like many other writers of the contemporary period such as Pat Barker and Sebastian Faulkes, Susan Hill has chosen to recuperate a version of a historical moment, that of the First World War.

Strange Meeting

, named after one of Wilfred Owen's poems, concentrates on a realistic representation of relationships between young men in the trenches. Like Pat Barker's trilogy which begins with

Regeneration

, Hill's

Strange Meeting

explores the suffering of shell-shock victims, notably Harris, a young soldier who regresses to meaningless inarticulacies and to a foetal state, hiding in a gap in the cellar wall to avoid the horrors of the surrounding war. Male friendships and questions about varieties of masculinity are explored through the homosexual relationship between two other men, officers…

314 words

Citation: Wisker, Gina. "Strange Meeting". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1832, accessed 28 March 2024.]

1832 Strange Meeting 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.