The Circulation of Grief in English Women's WWII Correspondence

The Circulation of Grief in English Women's WWII Correspondence

Focusing on epistolary depictions of domestic dangers and children's deaths, this article examines how English women used letter-writing to request support in response to traumatic wartime experiences. A theoretical framework is offered for understanding how letters function as a method of peer support. This framework combines Nancy Fraser's theory of subaltern counterpublics, Lauren Berlant's concept of intimate publics and Aimée Morrison's work on digital affective communities to understand how letters were emotionally beneficial to women. Next, by appealing to Narrative Psychiatry (John P. Wilson and Jacob D. Lindy, and SuEllen Hamkins) the author explores how various images and symbols within women's correspondence demonstrate their efforts to process and articulate their experiences of trauma, anxiety, and grief, in response to wartime events. In closing, the author considers how witnessing as a collaborative activity between a speaker and a listener, as theorized by Dori Laub, is translated into women's wartime epistolary relationships.