“Women Worth Fighting For”: Revaluing Gender and War in Rttta
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“Women Worth Fighting For”: Revaluing Gender and WarRttta in of Ingleside A Thesis Submitted To the Division of Graduate Studies of the Royal Military College of Canada By Debra Childs DeGagne, BA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts February 2012 ©This thesis may be used within the Department of National Defence but copyright for open publication remains the property of the author. 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Canada To my loved ones on the home front who understand the value of love, loyalty, and courage: Bemie, Andre, Jean-Luc, David, Benoit, Jonathan, Aimee, Chloe, Naomie, Isolde, and Theodore i Acknowledgments My heartfelt thanks to my advisor, Dr. Laura Robinson for all of her help and support during the writing of this thesis. I must also acknowledge the dedicated professors and staff of RMC who passionately and generously shared their knowledge and expertise with me as I researched and wrote, particularly Dr. Marion McKeown, Dr. Jane Errington, Dr. Steve Lukits, Dr. Doug Delaney, Dr. Jane Boulden, and Catherine St. Georges. Suzanne Cote-Latimer and the helpful staff of the Royal Military College of Canada Library also merit a warm thank you, as well as the personnel at the L. M. Montgomery Collection at the University of Guelph Library. A bstract The objective of this thesis is to examine expectations of gender and war during World War One that Lucy Maud Montgomery subtly challenged inRilla o f Ingleside by suggesting that the majority of Canadian women were not only worthy of male sacrifice, but that women’s sacrifices, although different, were equal to that of the combatants and merited recognition and celebration. Montgomery’s maternal feminist philosophy shapes the lives of the women portrayed in her war novel as the author focuses on the importance traditional domestic roles played in supporting Canada’s war effort. Throughout the novel, Montgomery emphasizes the characterizations of worth as defined by Victorian norms preserved in pre war rural Canada, national ideals of citizenship, and organized religion. By measuring her female characters against her perceptions of feminine worth, Montgomery highlights the value of traditional domestic roles and suggests a revaluing of gendered labour. By juxtaposing differing points of view in Rilla, Montgomery also challenges her readers to examine gender and war from conflicting perspectives. In Rilla, Montgomery enthusiastically creates a Canadian ideology of women’s place in the war effort and also defines, through Rilla and other characters, what makes a “good” or “worthy” woman. Although much research has been done on Montgomery and her work, relatively little has focused on her war novel that accurately portrays the war fought by Canadians on the home front. With reference to Montgomery’s war diaries, personal correspondence, and close readings of her and contemporaries’ writings, as well as war anthologies, documented histories and firsthand accounts, this study ofRilla o fIngleside helps complete an understanding of Canada’s home front during the war by portraying the lives of Canadian women as they learn to revalue traditional gender roles and the complicated moral and religious issues of a nation at war. Dissertation Keywords/ Search Tags: Lucy Maud Montgomery, Great War, First World War, gender roles, characterizations of worth, religion’s role in war, home front. Rdsumd L’objectif de cette these consiste k examiner les enjeux hommes-femmes pendant la Premiere Guerre mondiale et les attentes qu’avait la soci6te de l’epoque par rapport aux femmes et a la guerre - une perspective contre laquelle s’insurge subtilement Lucy Maud MontgomeryRilla dans o f Ingleside, ouvrage qui laisse entendre non seulement que la majorite des femmes canadiennes etaient dignes des sacrifices des hommes, mais aussi que leurs propres sacrifices, bien que de nature diffgrente, etaient comparables a ceux des combattants et mgritaient tout au tant d’etre reconnus et celgbres. Bien que les etudes sur Montgomery et son oeuvre ne manquent pas, il en existe relativement peu au sujet de ce roman de guerre qui dresse un portrait authentique de la guerre menee par les Canadiens sur le front intgrieur. Fondee sur les journaux de guerre et la correspondance personnel le de Montgomery, sur la lecture minutieuse de ses ecrits et de ceux de ses contemporains, ainsi que sur des anthologies, des ouvrages d’histoire documents et des recits de premiere main, cette analyse deRilla o f Ingleside aide k mieux comptendre ce qu’gtait le front interieur du Canada pendant la guerre en montrant comment vivaient les Canadiennes et comment elles ont appris k rggvaluer les roles traditionnels de l’homme et de la femme, et en mettant en Evidence les enjeux moraux et religieux complexes d’une nation en guerre. Mots-clgs/clgs de recherche pour la dissertation : Lucy Maud Montgomery, role de la femme, caracterisation du mgrite, role de la religion dans la guerre, front interieur. List of Abbreviations RI Rilla ofIngleside RV Rainbow Valley SJ The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery iv Curriculum Vitae Debra Childs DeGagne wrote for her high school paper and won the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia’s Medal for poetry published in Such a Neat Idea while she attended Acadia University. Debra graduated from Acadia in 1999 with a B.A. in English. As a military spouse, Debra has held many positions in the education field, finding new jobs as her husband was posted and the family relocated. She has worked for many Military Family Resource Centres as a day care director and ESL teacher. As a graduate student in War Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, she worked as a RA for Dr. Robinson and researched Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journals. This inspired her to read Montgomery’s novels for the first time. Debra felt particularly connected toRilla o f Ingleside and Montgomery’s depiction of Canadian life on the home front during the Great War. As a military spouse and mother of four sons, two of whom serve in the Canadian Army, Debra is in accord with Montgomery that families supporting military members should be recognized and celebrated. Table o f Contents Introduction The Complexities and Contradictions of Worth -1 Chapter One Montgomery’s View of Women’s Worth in W ar-13 Montgomery’s War -17 Wartime Voices: Women as Mothers, men as Soldiers -23 Rilla: Through the Lenses of Maternal Feminism and Class -25 Women’s Roles as Depicted in Rilla -35 Montgomery, the Military Service Act, and the Vote -41 “appear heroic...essentially unchanged” -45 Chapter Two “an insignificant person, of no importance to anybody” -50 Montgomery’s Childhood: Negative Internalizations -51 “His little diamond solitaire on my left hand!” -56 Montgomery’s Ideas of Worth in Marriage and Motherhood -62 Finding Value: Private Versus Public Life -66 Chapter Three Montgomery on Canadian Worth: Loyalty, industry, and Courage -73 Loyalty -75 Loyalty: the Dark Side -79 Women’s Loyalty: Support Through Emotional Repression - 83 Loyalty: Commitment to the Cause -88 Loyalty: Faithfulness to Another -89 Industry-92 Courage-95 Chapter Four Worth As Defined by Religion: Montgomery, Blood Sacrifice, and Religion as Crusade -102 God as a National Deity -104 Montgomery’s Religion in Rilla and Life -111 Montgomery’s Alternative Spirituality -118 Spirituality and “Speaking of Dreams” -120 War as Religious Sacrifice inRilla -123 “Keeping faith” -131 C onclusion Montgomeiy and Canadian Women's Significance in War -137 N o te s-1 4 1 Bibliography -162 The Complexities u d CsxtradictiiMss of Worth Lucy Maud Montgomery's (1874-1942) novels, particularlyAnne o f Green Gables (1908), have cqptured die hearts o f Canadians and the world. She was a respected contemporary of Mark Twain's and John McCrae’s; the Governor General o f Canada, Earl Grey, was such an avid fan o f Montgomery's that he organized a special trip to Prince Edward Island so he could meet and personally thank her for her books.