The Labour of Loss: Mourning, Memory and Wartime Bereavement in Australia

by Joy Damousi

• ISBN13: 9780521669740
• ISBN10: 052166974X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-06-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Labour of Loss explores how mothers, fathers, widows, relatives and friends dealt with their experiences of grief and loss during and after the First and Second World Wars. Based on an examination of private loss through letters and diaries, this study makes a significant contribution to understanding how people came to terms with the deaths of friends and family. Unlike other studies in this area, The Labour of Loss considers how mourning affected men and women in different ways, and analyzes the gendered dimensions of grief.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	viii
Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
Part I The First World War
Theatres of Grief, Theatres of Loss	9	(17)
The Sacrificial Mother	26	(20)
A Father's Loss	46	(19)
The War Widow and the Cost of Memory	65	(20)
Returned Limbless Soldiers: Identity through Loss	85	(20)
Part II The Second World War
Absence as Loss on the Homefront and the Battlefront	105	(21)
Grieving Mothers	126	(18)
A War Widow's Mourning	144	(17)
Conclusion	161	(3)
Notes	164	(31)
Bibliography	195	(11)
Index	206