Despite the huge pressure (white feathers delivered to 'cowards' etc.), these men found ways to defend themselves while remaining masculine in some way: looking after their families, investing in war loans and joining war-related civilian bodies - hoping these would be seen as manly, which they weren't. The volunteer groups, veterans' groups and so on were seen as physically weak, reserved for old people and not very serious. I wonder if the upper- and middle-class striekbreakers in the 1926 General Strike were up to the same thing.
Update: she sees new themes emerging in the General Strike period but isn't sure why. There are loads of ways of looking at these things. Some good questions from the floor (as usual, I ask something dull) which always lead her to more fascinating detail.
She's got some great propaganda and recruitment images too.
2 comments:
There's a brilliant and confusing long short story by H.D. called 'Kora and Ka' - told from the point of view of a male 'shell-shock' victim whom, it emerges, was never in the army but was traumatised by a) atrocity news stories from the front and b) his mother's war chauvinism and resentment of him due to his brother's death at the front. Fascinating study of masculinity in crisis, narrated psychotocally by the victim.
I know - I've read it!
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