Women’s Counter-Memories of the First War World: Two emblematic case –studies Vera Brittain, and Mary Borden

Abstract

The tradition of canonical  war writing has long been seen as something  belonging  to men, on the contrary, for many women the  First World War was a sort of catalyst for developing a public voice while at the same time creating a different gender perspective on the same historical event.  This aspect has become evident  since the last two  decades of the Twentieth Century  when cultural historians, Memory Studies  and Gender Studies    pointed out  not only the inadequacy of a  monolithic  memory but also the many traces left by  women’s controversial memories  of  the same event in the collective consciousness. My paper will highlight some of the many thorny issues   war female writings arise with particular regards to English  historical context and to same case- studies such as Vera Brittain and Mary Borden’s  works.