Gothic, Mechanised Ghosts: Wartime Industry in Inez Holden, Anne Ridler and Diana Murray Hill

Abstract

This chapter examines texts which use the Gothic mode to depict the work done in Second World War factories. Government propaganda, film and workers’ diaries present factory labour as community-building and personally enriching. By contrast, writing by Inez Holden, Anne Ridler and Diana Murray Hill constructs industry as a site of barbaric toil and isolation.