The Representation of Women in British First World War Propaganda and Fiction: Identities of women in Non-Combatants and Others by Rose Macaulay and Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

Abstract

In recent years, the revolution in communication and mass media had a significant impact on war operations. However, many don’t realize that the history of propaganda goes way back to the First World War staging the first organized official propaganda campaign to shape public opinion. In my thesis I intend to discuss the events and beliefs that led to the outbreak of the war, to the extensive use of propaganda and most importantly the representation of women reflected in propaganda. In the second chapter I will attempt to define war motivation and focus on the meaning and the operation of propaganda based on the theories of Walter Lippmann and Harold Lasswell, as well as the different propaganda techniques and their functions, while I will mediate upon the importance of feminism and gender identity during the First World War. Analyzing articles from The War on Land and Water and various propaganda posters I will examine how the propaganda agencies used the different techniques to manipulate the masses with regards to portraying women, while drawing upon Rose Macaulay’s Noncombatants and Others and Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth as my major source, I will delineate the various representations of women. Finally, I will argue that during the First World War the representations of women in fiction mirror the various stereotypes that were reinforced by propaganda, although the idea of the “new woman” is introduced.