The 1950s novelists mostly dealt with the themes of individual culture in Lucky Jim and was thus
and was thus not well accepted by the
struggle and contest for meaning in life. The "angry young men"
dealt with the themes of national identity and the state of
contemporary culture. The novelists who came under this category
were Kingsley Amis, John Wain, John Braine and Alan Sillitoe. The
rise of popular culture and the fragmentation of the welfare structure
of the state, the dissatisfaction of the youth due to the lack of
employment opportunities and the collapse of the Empire contributed
to the picture of gloom in British society in the 1950s and was
reflected in these writers. The satirical portrait of the unemployment
situation in contemporary England preoccupied them.
Amis's novel Lucky Jim is about his misadventures that go beyond
his control. The narrative is consistently energetic and filled with
satirical incidents. The novel belongs to a series of fictional writings
that deal with the pretentiousness of both intellectual and cultural
institutions during his time.. Jim cannot adjust to the pretentions of
the professors like Welch. His hatred leads him to the uncontrollable
mockery of Welch at a public lecture. Jim loses his job but is hired
by a rich man who admires his courage. Eventually things turn out
well when Christine, engaged to Welch's son, goes over to Jim. In
Jim Dixon, Amis created a prototype of an anti-hero: lovable,
clumsy, unpretentious and dishonest in parts. The novel became
particularly popular because of the context of the story. During that
period, more and more people from the "lower" classes who were
previously barred from "high culture" started to acquire education in
universities and colleges. This became the reason of disappointment
among the traditionalists who believed that the lower classes lacked
culture and were devoid of intellectuality. This culture war of the
1950s-60s England became the background of the novel and became
quite popular among the elite and the common masses The character
Jim always stood against the pretensions of a pure, traditional high
"cultured" professors..
Alan Sillitoe writes fiction about low life. He was occupied in
portraying the outsider. His subjects includes crooks, prostitutes and
the unemployed. His collection of stories The Loneliness of the
Long-Distance Runner dealt with the themes of loneliness,
alienation, isolation and angst. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
deals with the theme of alienation between men and women and
unhappy social conditions. Arthur Seaton, the protagonist stands for
the English working class man who tries to alleviate his professional
misery and inadequacy through love affairs with Brenda and Doreen.
The Death of William Posters, The Flame of Life deals with the
concern of working class environment in an age of high
industrialization. His novels are marked by the language of the
streets and depiction of lust, swearing, fights and barroom(like a bar)
scenes. He portrays the working class man's attempts at improving
himself but finally ending in failure. His fiction has angry
protagonists who seek vengeance against a society that has deprived
them of opportunities. Their acquisition of material possessions,
welfare benefits from the government or even marriage rarely render
them happier. Extra marital love affairs, lust rather than love,
divorces and abandonment are common in their characters.
The condition of contemporary England has not only been the
province of the "angry young men". Other novelists like Rose
Macaulay also dealed with angst and dissatisfaction with the
contemporary social scene. Muriel Spark worked with the themes
with social delusion and individual failure and achievement.
Few notable women writers who dominated the Post modern scene
are Margaret Drabble, A.S. Byatt, Jean Rhys, Doris Lessing, Anita
Brookner and Angela Carter.
Drabble writes about the concerns of women in specific contexts of
contemporary culture. Women's rights, motherhood and identity are
her central themes. The Ice Age deals with the attempts of a middle
aged but beautiful woman to negotiate between her family's demands
and her needs for emotional sustenance from her new relationship.
The Seven Sisters shows how each of the seven women are lonely
and dissatisfied with their lives and how their journey helps them
discover several things about themselves.
Jean Rhys wrote the best selling Wild Sargasso Sea, the reworking of
the classic Jane Eyre. Themes of colonialism, racism and sexuality
combine to make it a powerful tale. Her protagonist Antoinette is a
victim of her identity of being and Afro-Caribbean and English. She
is the symbol of the marginalized, non European woman.
Doris Lessing deals with social issues and transcultural politics and
the politics of colour and she explores the lives of Britishers in
Africa. She also writes science fiction. The Good Terrorist concerns
with the culture of urban terrorism. The Grass is Singing deals with
the issues of racialized Africa. Mary, a white woman is in an
unhappy marriage and has an affair with the farm's black servant.
The barren lives of Mary and her husband Dick becomes symbolic of
the collapse of white lives in Africa as a whole.
Angela Carter was concerned with "black comedy"- about sexual and
drug related issues and personalities. Her writing is a mix of the
gothic and fantasy fiction. Her works are quite famous among the
feminist writers as she portrays conflicts of gender and class as in
The Passion of New Eve.
Other notable novelists of the period are Angus Wilson, Anthony
Powell, Iris Murdoch, Anthony Burgess, William Golding, John
Fowles, John Le Carre, Ian McEwan and Martin Amis.
Murdoch was an extremely intellectual philosopher and thinker. A
Severed Head is an extraordinary satire on the hypocrisies of upper
class English society as they gets engaged in worthless physical
relations leading to an endless round of incest, adultery and marriage
among a group of aristocratic middle aged men and women.
Burgess' Clockwork Orange used a combination of American,
Russian and English slang vocabulary to invent the new street slang
Nadsat to explore the gap between the younger and the older
generation. It was quite successful in presenting an inside view of the
youth culture of the 1950s and 60s and became controversial with the
description of violence.
William Golding's fiction was rooted in a dark,
misanthropic(antisocial) vision of humanity and civilization. Lord of
the Flies showed the eventual degradation of school children and by
this Golding shows that given the right circumstances, even the
civilized man will turn savage. The Squire showcased human pride,
which seeks gratification even at the cost of others' lives.
John Fowles dealt with the exploitation of the conventional Victorian
narrative, Le Carre popularized the spy-thriller genre and Martin
Amis is known for his satirical verses and metafictional narratives.
During the second half of the 20th century, literature from various
non English centres also became quite popular. Writers like V.S.
Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai contributed to the
development of contemporary English fiction. Diasporic and Post
Colonial writers have offered many different visions of the English
culture, thus enriching the post modern fiction genre.