The domestic ideal and the role of New Zealand women during World War II : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Creative Writing at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
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2021
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Massey University
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This thesis comprises two sections: an original Young Adult novella, entitled, Looking at the Stars, and a critical research essay, focusing on Patricia Grace’s 2004 novel, Tu. In both the creative and critical portions, I undertake an exploration of the role of women during World War II. In the creative portion, a work of historical fiction, the domestic ideal which prevailed in New Zealand during the 1930s and 1940s is central to the narrative. The implications of women joining the workforce in considerable numbers during wartime, and their direction into essential occupational areas, previously more like to be the province of men, are central to the advancement of the plot. Looking at the Stars traces the effect of industrial conscription on the central character, a young unmarried woman, who is forced to leave her city home and move to a rural area to engage in farm work. The novella also highlights the wartime undermining of ascribed gender roles. In the critical portion of the thesis I investigate participation in the war effort by female characters in Grace’s Tu. I argue that the multifaceted nature of the role of women is portrayed in the text, although it is essentially a war novel which traces the experiences of Tu, the central character. Tu and his two older brothers join the 28 Māori Battalion at different stages of the war and the novel’s structurally complex narrative goes back and forth in time, interspersing Tu’s experiences on the battlefield with issues his family face as they endeavour to adapt to city living after
leaving tribal land beneath Mount Taranaki. This thesis makes a contribution to women’s history by emphasising the ubiquitous, but largely undocumented activities of women on the home front during World War II.