Moving back to “Home” and “Nation:” Women dramatists, 1938-1945

D'Mont�, Rebecca

Abstract

The blurring of public/private space during the Second World War also effected a privileging of the female voice and experience by redrawing loci of work and home, and by politicising the domestic. In doing this, some of the plays of the time can be seen to give female dramatists an opportunity to portray the tension between the mobile woman, who is required by the State to leave her home for the war effort, and the home-maker, who represents the traditional notion of womanhood, as well as looking to the reconstruction of a post-war Britain which would bring about a greater equality between the sexes. We find also that some female playwrights, questioned the stability of the home itself – and therefore seditiously the nation - even if theatrical and social convention unsatisfactorily closes down this line of enquiry.

• Publication Date: Oct 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Sep 20, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 1, 2016
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: Women in Transit Through Literary Liminal Spaces
• ISBN: 9781137330468
• Keywords: women dramatists, 1938-1945
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/927098
• Publisher URL: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=669457
• Contract Date: Nov 1, 2016