The Impact of the Great War on the Lives of Women

Abstract

This thesis deals with literature of the Great War and examines the situation of women in this period through the characters in fiction works of the period with the support of non-fiction works by Virginia Woolf (A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas) and Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. Through literature rather than direct historical approach, this thesis looks at the ways in which the war impacted the lives of women. The five fictional works dealt with are Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Aldous Huxley's short story “Farcical History of Richard Greenow,” Rebecca West's Return of the Soldier, Edith Wharton's Return of the Soldier, and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Chapters are on the following topics: “Women in the Soldier's Life” and chapters on women of the Great War and the following topics, education, work, class, and sexual liberation.