During World War I, the authorities in Australia made it clear to young men that they had a duty to enlist in the armed forces. This was to be a major theme in the creative literature of the war years, with young men being implored to uphold Australia's honour and to fulfill their duty to Britain, Empire and loved ones at home by enlisting.
One significant idea to emerge in the literature of the war years involved the almost religious concept of redemption through sacrifice, the notion that a man might redeem himself of past misdemeanours and failures by enlisting and going off to war. This idea features in a number of works, perhaps most notably in C.J. Denis’s enormously popular wartime verse novel, The Moods of Ginger Mick, in which larrikin and petty crim Ginger Mick redeems himself by enlisting and going off to fight at Gallipoli, where he is killed.
Be a Man, Enlist To-Day! Another persistent idea involved the notion that a man might prove his masculinity by enlisting. The scenario in which a young man would enlist and in so doing win the heart of his beloved was to become a well worn theme in the literature the war years. Conversely, able bodied single men who didn't enlist were routinely portrayed as weaklings or as lazy, unmanly 'shirkers', unworthy of a woman's affections.
Occasionally we find recruiting and enlistment treated in a lighter slightly humorous vein, such as in Henry Lawson’s (arguably sexist) poem ‘The Recruiting Sergeants’, which has men joining up not for the higher motives of duty or ‘King and Country’, but in order to escape from their nagging wives and unhappy marriages.
For a list of works involving recruiting and enlistment in the World War I data set click here.
(More to come soon)
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