Literature of the 1940s

“Not the mother type”: Exploding the Myth of Maternal Devotion in Marghanita Laski's To Bed with Grand Music

“…Moreover, Mrs. Betts' class prejudice prevents her from overtly criticizing her own daughter to a servant, and yet she manages to bury her criticism under her concerns for her grandson, a precious object of affection for both women. The devoted grandmother deplores her daughter's 'nervy' nature and confides how 'I always felt that Deborah would be happiest with a job of work to keep her going', but is forced to concede she had 'hoped that Timmy would have been the job', a hope obviously dashed by Deborah's indifferent parenting (13). Laski's frequent use of the term nervy suggests Deborah's clear discomfort around the more tedious aspects of child-rearing as well as Mrs. Betts' critical view of her daughter's maternal ambivalence, while the description of mothering as a job echoes public discourse targeting mothers of young children as performing essential war service.…”

“…Women were a "problem"', and the ways in which this problem was understood had significant implications for the representation of femininity, masculinity, and sexuality'. 13 Laski's novel fits Plain's description, as it features a troubling protagonist who in turn confronts, manipulates, and absorbs wartime assumptions around women's patriotic purposes. Reading Laski's novel in its wartime context exposes telling rifts between official demands for public service and the private desires of individual women, and provides a more complex picture of the interactions between private lives and political aims on the British home front.…”