Essay On Facial Disillusionment

Goals and Background Throughout history, there has often been a social stigma related to those with facial deformities. Even throughout the more progressive centuries, people still associate negative connotations with those who have facial disfigurement. This was especially the case after the Great War. Most historians’ only attribute a side note to the thousands of mutilated soldiers that returned from World War One, and very few go on to talk about the rehabilitation process that these men had to endure. Often times, they attribute a broad feeling of disillusionment or attribute hardships due to a loss of identity, but never fully address the psychological and sociological repercussions that theses men faced and their effects on the veterans. Firstly, in this

Likewise, there are a few secondary sources pertaining to the amount of facial disfigurement after the war, however, many of these sources and explanations do not go in depth. A multitude of sources that I found nearly explained how these masks were created, and how broadly they were used by the men in order to conserve their pre-war appearance. However, despite these broad ideas, none of the sources I examined that pertained to the inter war period explained in depth how the masks were used as social rehabilitation due to the external social constraints and internal psychiatric trauma. Therefore, my piece not only addresses the history of these wounded soldiers, but also ties in the psychological and sociological effects of appearance and social interaction. Moreover, this work also ties in the theory of disillusionment as another reason why soldiers craved the normalcy that the masks gave them. Overall, the aim of my research is to address the underlying psychological and social issues that led these mutilated soldiers to obtain masks in order to feel normal and discard the disillusionment of