Traumatic memory in Jean Henry Dunant's A Memory of Solferino

Abstract

A Memory of Solferino is a memoir, which is full of traumas with horrific war description of Solferino. The text takes the marginal side in wars' representation which is the reconstruction of a new war history that is very different from the canonical war histories. It presents the war history of marginalized warriors with the pictures of death, destruction, hunger, pain and exhaustion, which get central focus in the text. The text neatly shows that wars are waged regularly by the nations and emperors, where the fighters are only the means of the grand objective. Dunant, by focusing or the marginal sides in account of war, deconstructs the canonical war histories, which glorify the wars. So, this small war account is a new war history which makes a reconstruction in the canon of national war histories.