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Benigno Pedroza

Professor Ditch

English 115

5 November 2018

The Suffering and Happiness after War

The state of happiness is not always easily achieved. For some people it can be more

difficult than others due to the different circumstances they might face. For example, the people

that lived during world war two had a harder time to be happy because of all the suffering they

experienced. The epistolary novel “The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society” written by

Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, takes place after the end of world war 2. The main

character Juliet Ashton begins a correspondence with Dawsey Adams because she is interested to

learn more about a literary society he is in; since she is writing an article on the benefits of

literature. Remy Giraud was in a concentration camp during world war two when she met

Elizabeth Mckenna, who was part of this literary society. Despite experiencing difficult life

experiences Juliet Ashton is able to attain happiness by creating new friends in contrast to Remy

Giraud, who although heals from physical suffering, does not achieve true happiness because she

was deeply scarred from the suffering she endured to the point where she could no longer heal.

In the beginning of the novel Juliet seems unhappy despite her book being successful and

having read her book to an audience. In a letter she says, “You know how I love talking about

books, and you know how I adore receiving compliments. I should be thrilled. But the truth is

that I’m gloomy gloomier than I ever was during the war. Everything is so broken,…” At first

Juliet is unhappy because everything around her is broken, due to the damages caused by the
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war. If Juliet would’ve been able to see her situation in a different way, like being happy that her

book was successful, she might’ve been at least somewhat happy and not gloomy. This leads to

the article “The Sources of Happiness,” in it His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler

speak on many ways to achieve happiness. They both explain that the happiness of a person is

determined by their perspective, and external events can decrease your happiness if you’re

unable to see any good. Specifically, that “happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind

than by external events.” (The Dalai Lama and Cutler 22) It is not easy for a person to see the

good in their situation if there is a lot of negativity surrounding them, but if they are able to

change their perspective in a more positive way they can return to their normal state of

happiness. “Success may result in a temporary feeling of elation, or tragedy may send us into a

period of depression, but sooner or later our overall level of happiness tends to migrate back to a

certain baseline.” (The Dalai Lama and Cutler 22) Cutler is saying that sometimes we are

extremely happy or depressed, but after some time we will return to our normal level of

happiness. Similarly, Juliet felt “gloomy” at first, but when she began writing to the members of

the literary society it was her way of changing her perceptive into a more positive way causing

her to eventually be happy.

Throughout the novel Juliet maintains a correspondence with the members in the literary

society. Eventually she becomes friends with them and after some time Juliet visits Guernsey to

meet these people, which makes her happy. Juliet finally meets her friends that she has only

known through letters and she seems to cheer up and is no longer gloomy. In a letter Juliet

writes, “Isola reached me first by leaping over a crate of lobsters and grabbed me up in a fierce

hug that swung me off my feet…. The others came toward me more quietly, but with no less

warmth.” (Shaffer and Barrows 160) These people gave Juliet a warm welcome demonstrating
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that they were friends of hers and that is exactly what she needed to feel happy. The kinds of

relationships a person has with others has a great impact on their amount of happiness. In the

article, “The Anatomy of Friendship” by Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar, who is a British

anthropologist, he claims that, “the friendships we have are closely tied with one’s happiness and

health.” (Dunbar) In other words the amount of happiness and good health a person has in their

lives is determined by the kinds of friendships they have. This relates closely back to the

situation Juliet has, when she finally meets her friends on Guernsey her happiness and health

begin to improve. The first evidence Dunbar provides to back this claim is a diagram that shows

the path analysis of data from a UK stratified national survey, in which two thousand adults were

studied to show that “having more close friends and eating more meals with other people have

positive effects on satisfaction with life, happiness…”(Dunbar) According to Dunbar if a person

has many close friends and they spend time together then that will have a positive effect on their

lives. If what Dunbar is saying is true then Juliet’s decision to go to Guernsey and meet all these

people, and more importantly make them her friends, was the best thing she could have done for

her happiness and well-being.

Some would argue that Juliet is not happy because her relationship with Mark was not very

positive and it made her unhappy. Juliet was together with Mark for two months when he asked

her to marry him. She wasn’t ready to say yes because she felt like they hadn’t known each other

long enough. “It’s not long enough for me to be certain that we should spend the rest of our lives

together, even if you are.” (Shaffer and Barrows 131) After some time, Juliet and Mark lose

contact, and with it their relationship. Here it would seem that Juliet is unhappy, but her leaving

Mark actually led to her being with a man that she loved and could make her happy. In one of the

notes written by Isola, she talks about the time she heard Juliet ask Dawsey to marry her. “Would
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you like to marry me?” “I’m in love with you, so I thought I’d ask.” After some silence Dawsey

answered, “My God, yes.” (Shaffer and Barrows 273) The act of Juliet asking Dawsey to marry

her is proof that she felt he would make her happy. Juliet achieves true happiness because of her

new friends.

In The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, one individual that has suffered the most

out of all the characters, which leads to them being unhappy, is Remy Giraud. She was in a

concentration camp during the war, and during her time as a prisoner she met Elizabeth. After

the war, she wrote a letter to the literary society explaining how German soldiers had executed

Elizabeth. Along with Remy’s letter a nurse sent her own with it, in her letter she spoke of

Remy’s health when she was released from the concentration camp. “After several days, Remy’s

legs and body were so swollen with famine edema, she could not continue to walk. So, she just

laid herself down in the road to die.” (Shaffer and Barrows 182) The things Remy experienced

during and after her time as a prisoner caused her to suffer physically and mentally. Suffering

can hurt people in many ways and sometimes if a person suffers enough they never recover. In

the article What Suffering Does David brooks says that “Recovering from suffering is not like

recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.”

(Brooks 287) This applies to Remy because she never seems to recover from her past suffering

even after she heals physically she still wasn’t happy, maybe because she had not healed

mentally. According to Brooks after enough suffering some people, “Try as they might, they just

can’t tell themselves to stop feeling pain, or to stop missing the one who has died or is gone….

when grief eases, it is not clear where the relief comes from.” (Brooks 286) Remy was unable to

stop suffering because she didn’t know how to stop. After some time, Remy goes to Guernsey to
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live with the others, and even then, she never seems to be happy despite having so many friends

that wanted to help her improve her health and be happy.

The society a person lives in can also be the reason that they and many others suffer. The

political decisions a government makes can sometimes create wars between other countries,

which leads to death and suffering. An article, “The Role of Relevancy and Social Suffering in

“Generativity” Among Older Post-Soviet Women Immigrants” written by: Kate de Medeiros,

Robert Rubinstein, and Polina Ermoshkina explain that generativity is a disease caused by social

suffering, that makes people feel a need to nurture and guide younger people and contribute to

the next generation. More importantly in their article they claim that social suffering is “an

assemblage of human problems that have their origins and consequences in the devastating

injuries that social forces can inflict on human experience.” (Medeiros et al. p.528) Meaning that

social suffering happens when many people share the same pain that originates from the same

place; This is caused by the social forces they live in. Similarly, this happens to Remy Giraud.

When Remy was taken as a prisoner because of the war she and many other women were

affected by the same origin of pain, that being the concentration camp they were in. Since Remy

and the women that she was prisoners with all suffered from the same experiences their social

suffering made it even harder to recover from so much pain. If anything, it made their situation

look and feel much worse because when Remy was in the camp all the prisoners were suffering

and that only added negativity to their lives, making it harder to ever recover and achieve

happiness. In Remy’s letter to the literary society she writes about the things she saw as a

prisoner. She saw women suffer from poor hygiene, it was so bad that even when some women

would menstruate they would not be given any provisions. She even mentions when a woman

overseer during roll call “began to rage at a bleeding girl. Rage at her and threaten her with her
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upraised rod. Then she began to beat the girl.” (Shaffer and Barrows 181) Seeing things like this

happen to others can also cause suffering even if it’s not happening to you. The war affected all

of them and that made their suffering even harder to overcome. Seeing yourself and others

suffering because of the same reason can make it difficult to ever be happy. Remy was not happy

because of all the things she experienced and saw others go through.

Although it would be very difficult to argue that Remy is happy in the story some would still

say that she is. Some would argue that Remy being liberated after the war would be more than

enough reason for her to be happy, but she isn’t. Even after she goes to Guernsey to stay she

never seems to fully recover from the war. Even Juliet says, “Remy seems stronger now that she

was last month, but she is very frail yet…She must be around people cheerful people, if

possible.” (Shaffer and Barrows 218) Juliet and her friends from the literary society try their best

to make Remy happy and help her forget about the war but it wasn’t enough. Remy never

achieved true happiness.

Both Juliet Ashton and Remy Giraud were affected by the war making them feel unhappy

due to the suffering they experienced. Although both characters suffered only Juliet was able to

achieve true happiness after some time. Juliet was able to achieve happiness because she didn’t

suffer very much, and she still had a positive mentality that allowed her to take full advantage of

her friends and achieve happiness. On the other hand, Remy suffered much more than Juliet and

thus it was much more difficult for her to recover. It was so difficult for Remy to see her life in a

positive way after the war that she didn’t want her friends to help her recover and that’s why she

was never able to achieve happiness.

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Works Cited
Shaffer, Mary Ann and Barrows, Annie. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Dial Press, 2009.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Cutler, Howard. “The Sources of Happiness.” Pursuing

Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader, created by Matthew Parfitt & Dawn Skorczewski,

Bedford/St. Martin’s, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016. pp. 21-32

Dunbar, R.I.M. “The Anatomy of Friendship.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 22, no. 1,

2018, pp. 32–51.

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does.” Pursuing Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader,

created by Matthew Parfitt & Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St. Martin’s, a Macmillan

Education Imprint, 2016. pp. 284-287.

De Medeiros, Kate, et al. “The Role of Relevancy and Social Suffering in “Generativity” Among

Older Post-Soviet Women Immigrants.” The Gerontologist, vol. 55, no. 4, 2015, pp. 526–

536.