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This thesis will explore representations of female rivalry in novels by women between 1914 and 1939. It will focus especially on women writers' reversal of the 'erotic triangle' paradigm theorised by Rem\ Girard (1961) and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1985). By using a female-male-female triangle these women novelists are able to examine the conflict between women's primary bonds to other women and their desire for the sexual fulfilment and social/economic status offered by a relationship with a man. The first chapter will offer an historical overview and reasons for a particular interest in this theme during this period. Chapter Two will compare the models of female rivalry which can be drawn from the work of Freud (of key importance in the inter-war period) and Luce Irigaray, from studies of blood sister relationships, and from a Bakhtinian model of subjectivity constructed through dialogue. Both chapters will include brief analyses of novels. The central chapters will use these models of female rivalry to offer detailed analyses of texts by five women writers: May Sinclair, Rebecca West, Vera Brittain, Winifred Holtby and Rosamond Lehmann. The chapter on May Sinclair explores her use of psychoanalysis to problematise the motif of self-sacrifice in Victorian women's novels - the woman who sacrifices her own desires in order to cede the man she loves to her friend or sister. The chapter on Rebecca West looks at her use of her sisters as models for her female characters, and at her exploration of relations between women who are brought together only by their relation to the man they both love. The following two chapters will offer an extended analysis of the friendship between Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby and their intertextual rivalry over the meaning of their friendship and female friendship in general. The chapter on Rosamond Lehmann explores her valorisation of sister relationships and her examination Of the romance plot and the way that it constructs women as rivals. Finally, the conclusion will focus on a reading of Lehmann's retrospective The Echoing Grove (1953), which fuses the figures of the rival and the sister. It will argue for the need for a model of female rivalry which can encompass the tension generated by the simultaneous and competing positions occupied by women as rival commodities within a 'male economy' and as 'sisters' within a 'female economy'. I will suggest that we need new plots and narratives which can encompass rivalry between women which is not over a man. We also need to consider the possibility that some kinds of rivalry between women can, ironically, be both positive and energising.

The Royal Navy, and especially its leadership, is perceived to have performed poorly in the First World War and its officers have been described as being automatons who only came alive when directed by superiors. By contrast in the Second World War the Royal Navy and its officers are seen as having ‘done well,’ displaying flair and initiative. There does not appear to have been any attempt to look in any detail at what, if anything, changed in the twenty years between the wars to explain the perceived improvement. This thesis critically examines the executive branch of the Royal Navy, and contends that the navy adapted and modified the training of its officers to meet whatever was required of them; when they were required to passively obey orders as in the Grand Fleet of the First World War, they had been trained for that eventuality, when to show initiative likewise. During the 1920s the officer corps was mismanaged and morale and motivation suffered badly. The influence of the Admiralty civil service, the repository of institutional memory, which managed junior officers’ careers, was conservative and resistant to change. Changes in training both before and after the mutiny at Invergordon (September 1931) brought the officer corps up to date and set it on track for its outstanding performance in the next war, in particular recognising that leadership was not an innate class based ability, but had to be taught and developed. However, the navy had since the latter part of the nineteenth century changed the emphasis of officer’s career paths; specialist training was seen as the ‘route to the top’ and command was downgraded as a necessary part of an officer’s career development. It was only during the latter part of Second World War that having exercised command at sea was recognised as being an important part of an officer’s experience. The thesis also addresses the ‘RNVR myth’ that the Royal Navy was only able to prosecute the Second World War successfully because of an influx of well educated temporary officers and that they were the major driving force. This thesis has been largely based on primary sources, including personnel records which have not been studied before and have been examined in such a way as to allow statistical analysis.

This thesis, the first study of Nevile Henderson to be completed at doctoral level in the UK, takes a fresh look at Henderson's controversial role in Berlin between 1937 and 1939. It begins by re-examining Henderson's controversial appointment to the Berlin Embassy, and contends that a close study of his earlier career (especially in Belgrade between 1929 and 1935) help to explain those aspects of his behaviour that gave rise to criticism. After close analysis of published and unpublished Foreign Office documents, the thesis challenges the traditional view that Henderson favoured the Anschluss and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938. It also re-examines the charge that he undermined British policy by making indiscreet remarks in Germany, and argues that his scepticism about the anti-Nazi opposition was fully justified. And that he did, to a degree, carry out his 'warning' function in Berlin. Another key aspect concerns the extent to which Henderson's line in Berlin had support in the Foreign Office, and the re-consideration of his pivotal relationships with Chamberlain and Halifax. Particular attention is paid to the decision to send Henderson (by then a seriously ill man) back to Berlin in February 1939. The author's overall view is that, given Henderson's flawed analysis of the Nazi regime, a totally revisionist analysis of his time in Berlin would be untenable. The main conclusions are (a) that Henderson's influence on British policy has been exaggerated and (b) that he has been unfairly treated by historians. This thesis seeks to redress the historical balance by presenting the first close analysis, and rounded account, of what Henderson called the 'failure of a mission'.

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For a more complete understanding of the significance of fascism in inter-war Britain, it is important to consider the extent to which fascist views were an expression or extension of existing mainstream views. This thesis uses original research to examine how far the promotion of fascist views converged with mainstream opinion and identifies the issues on which British fascists went beyond the acceptable boundaries of mainstream society. Examining attitudes to antisemitism, refugees, the left, continental dictatorship and appeasement, culture, and, finally, the response of the mainstream press to the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and their reaction to what they perceived as a conspiracy against them, the thesis explores the possibility that there is a sufficient area of discursive overlap to locate British fascists within the mainstream. Significantly, comparison of the British fascist press and mainstream newspapers reveals that, while there were considerable areas of overlapping discourse, nonetheless, the underlying motivations of the fascists and the mainstream clearly differed. With one notable yet brief exception, the majority of the mainstream press regarded British fascists as belonging to the political margins and, increasingly, British fascism and the BUF in particular, defined itself in counter-cultural opposition to the mainstream.

<p>The aim is to study representation of order and otherness in the late 1930's Swedish press. That is, who are envisioned as "us" and who are the "Others"? The theoretical frame is based on Foucault’s concepts of pastoral power, the reason of state and biopolitics. The Good Shepherd is an excellent metaphor for the Nordic-style welfare state and the Foucauldian approach fits well with the social Darwinist and race biological metaphors of the time. Furthermore, news, myths and law articulate public morality and belong to disciplining, naturalizing and normalizing discourses. The symbolic boundaries between “We” and “Them” are outlined and modes of thinking, acceptable ways of behavior, and possible solutions for existing problems are provided.</p><p>The material examined consists of four Stockholm-based newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Stockholms-Tidningen, Svenska Dagbladet and Social-Demokraten. The years studied are 1935 and 1938. The quantitative content analysis is based on a selection of four months from each year. The articles are coded according to a theme and the characteristics of the actors. Gripsrud’s version of Propp’s actant model is used to examine the narrative structure of the stories. Linguistic tools, such as ideational and interpersonal functions, are used to analyze the individual texts.</p><p>The groups depicted as deviant include religious sects, ethnic minorities, foreigners, criminals and political activists on the extreme right and extreme left. A number of articles discuss various social problems in more general terms. Quantitatively more than eighty percent of the material consists of crime news. Approximately five percent of the articles are about ethnic minorities and foreigners. Religious sects and political extremists constitute about one percent each and roughly ten percent of the material is about social problems.</p>