I wept with broken mothers

Grief and war, which so often go hand in hand, are two of the most disruptive events that we can experience. Both promise the disordering of previous certainties, and both can act to unravel our sense of self.  However, the figure of the bereaved and grieving woman, usually a mother or a wife, has become a central symbol of wartime, representing at times both the disruptions and tragedies of war, and at others the stoicism and unity of the wartime community.

This paper will examine the representation in public discourse of grieving women in Second World War Britain, considering the ways in which  attempts were made to represent this group as symbols of a saddened yet stoical national community, and the occasions in which the disruptive nature of actual, lived grief broke through into this public sphere, challenging and fracturing such understandings.  Drawing on a range of representations, including film, fiction, newspapers and women’s magazines, the paper will argue that the disruptive and destructive nature of grief threatened the careful construction of an enduring and united wartime community.