I think that the war is one of facts that can explain Chris’s amnesia, but it is not only one.

In
fact, I think that the origin of his trauma resides in his marriage with Kitty and the death of his
son, Oliver. Due to the fact that Chris finds himself in a relationship with someone who just
care about superficiality and ignore the death of his love son, his trauma is stressed in the war.
Moreover, he cannot find solace in his marriage, because, I would argue, there is kind of
parallelism between the the war and his marriage, since his cure is seen as a return to the
trenches. An example can be provided at the end of the novel: “[…] He would go back to that
flooded trench in Flanders under that sky more full of flying death than clouds, to that No
Man’s Land where bullets fall like rain on the rotting faces of the dead” (West 138).

Therefore, his amnesia leads him to believe that he lives in a period of time prior to the war
and his marriage. His allusion to Margaret Allington is symbolic since it implies that at the time,
he was in love of her and they were a couple, he was happy, and it is the most peaceful and
blissful of his live. That is the reason why he says that he must see Margaret Allington “or he
would die” (30).

Regarding the reasons for an author writing at that time not to blame the war, I would argue
that the lack of pure values is what blame Rebecca West. Looking at the characters, Kitty is
rather superficial and denies accepting Oliver’s death or the fact that something wrong may
have happened to Chris at the beginning of the novel. Instead, she is more concerned about
keeping her status than those facts. Nevertheless, Margaret’s pure soul is the place where
Chris can find solace from his traumatic experiences. Therefore, there is no glory on the
superficial lifestyle, which resembles to the British Empire, but on the purity of the soul, which
is what makes us what we are: human beings.