Literary graves: archival remains and maternal voices of the First World War

Carter, Natalia (2025). Literary graves: archival remains and maternal voices of the First World War. University of Birmingham. M.A.

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Abstract

Scholarship on the First World War has traditionally centred on the soldier. Consequently, the mother’s perspective has been underexplored. This thesis argues that the image of the maternal figure evoked feelings of honour and shame during the First World War. By using ideological representations of the patriotic or emotional mother within fiction and newspapers, the individual humanity of mothers was obscured. Maternal memoir, as a first-hand account of maternal mourning, provides greater insight into the experience of motherhood, trauma, and bereavement. Combining an analysis of archives, objects, and memoirs, this research advances our understanding of how post-war society grieved during a period of unprecedented loss. This thesis argues that memoir functions like an archive, holding evidence of life while allowing the bereaved to maintain a connection to the deceased. Through creating a substitute corpse from meaningful texts and objects, archives and memoirs preserve a tangible connection to the lost loved one. Focusing on the memoirs of Pamela Glenconner and Marie Leighton, alongside archival objects, this research identifies a pattern of forming substitute bodies which imaginatively return the deceased to the Home Front and attend to the mother’s trauma.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Masters by Research > M.A.)

Award Type:

Masters by Research > M.A.

Supervisor(s):