Change and Anxiety: Historical Context

Abstract

Hoffman offers an insightful overview of the period’s key social tensions with regard to the changing roles of women in British society in the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter introduces a wide range of concerns, including the perception of a large number of ‘superfluous’ single women following the First World War; increasing access to education for women; expanding career opportunities outside the home occurring simultaneously with continued intense pressure to marry and have children; and changing ideologies surrounding marriage and sexual relationships. Such issues repeatedly appear as both central and peripheral anxieties in the texts explored in the succeeding chapters, and these historical and cultural contexts add valuable insight into the ambivalent modes of femininity depicted in those narratives.