The Girls in White: Nurse Images in Early Cold War Era Romance and War Comics

Publication year
2012
Pages
129-145
Comment

This article is primarily interested in examining the image of nurses and nurses and there is therefore little discussion of the romance plot. One example is given, however and there is a general paragraph about romance:

Romance figures prominently in the stories featuring nurse protagonists, because of the genre to which the comics belong and the target readership (clearly evidenced by the ads in the books). In many of these stories nursing is inferred as a path to matrimony, and while most nurse characters have inclinations towards caring and dedication to work, there is inevitably some romantic interaction with a male patient or doctor, sometimes with another nurse or a female patient as a rival. Some nurses were stereotypically motivated by desires to find doctors or wealthy patients to marry. Vulnerable, liable to fall in love at any moment, their matrimonial exit from the profession was virtually inevitable. In order to achieve their romantic aims, some nurses are shown as manipulative and scheming. The implication of this image is that nursing is simply a bridge between school and marriage, and that nurses are ultimately self-serving rather than self-sacrificing. (140)