The Influence Of WWI On May Sinclair's Social Identity And Poetry

Identifying the Influence of WWI on May Sinclair's Social Identity and Poetry
Born in Cheshire, England in 1863, May Sinclair was both a feminist and poet, driven to expand the rights of women in the nineteenth century as an active suffragist. In an era where political affairs and the economy were dominated by males, Sinclair was constricted by societal gender roles that emphasized the domestic duty and femininity of the female figure in both their private and social lives. The onset of World War I in 1914 led to a massive shift in the female identity as women filled occupations originally held by men, who had gone to serve England by fighting in the war. Freed from the gender conventions that she found constricting, Sinclair acknowledged the
In her piece titled, "Field Ambulance in Retreat", Sinclair presents a tranquil scene of daily life when she writes, "A straight flagged road, laid on the rough earth / Through the flat green land, by plots of flowers / The labourers are few" (Sinclair 1-8). However, she later contrasts that scene of peace among the workers and animals when she presents the imagery of the war intruding upon this domestic tranquility when she writes, "They and their quiet oxen stand and wait / By the long road loud with the passing of the guns […] and the tramp of an army on the march forward to battle / Our dripping ambulance carries home / Its red and white harvest from the fields (11-12). Using vivid imagery to depict how WWI heavily altered the once serene lifestyle of England, Sinclair also reveals how she witnessed and tended to the casualties of the war firsthand as her ambulance corps carried home their "red and white harvest from the fields". As Sinclair paints the image of the war as destructive and dangerous to her audience, she highlights the idea that she has been liberated from her previous gender conventions and she relishes in this opportunity to participate in the war as opposed to the previously uneventful
In one instance of "Field Ambulance in Retreat", Sinclair introduces her mixed feelings when she says, "Our safety weighs us down / Safety hard and strange; stranger and yet more hard / As, league after dying league, the beautiful desolate Land / Falls back from the intolerable speed of an Ambulance in retreat" (Sinclair 21-25). Through her use of straightforward and plain diction, Sinclair reveals her conflicting feelings on the war to her audience who easily understands her writing. Though her diction may be simple, it is still connotative especially in the way that she describes how "safety weighs them down" and that "safety is hard and strange". Sinclair is exhilarated by the thrill of being so close to fighting on the battlefield as she works for the corps, yet she sees the idea of safety as a strange burden on her activities, as she is reminded that the war is not a place of excitement-it is a place of death and destruction for soldiers, innocent civilians, and great towns and cities. Within Sinclair's work, "Dedication", she further uses this simple diction to present her sincere thoughts to the audience when she writes, "I do not call you comrades / You have taken my dream / And dressed yourself in its beauty and its