 This distance is very similar to the distance from war and its trauma in Virginia Woolf's "Jacob's Room".The successful treatment of the traumatised returned soldier is a fundamental element of "The Return of the Soldier".Unlike Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" and Dorothy L. Sayers' "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club", other postwar novels which emphasise the lingering effects of war despite attempts at reintegration, "The Return of the Soldier" lends a certain optimism that the soldier can be reintegrated into society.