The Combination between a Love Story and a Social Story in John

Braine’s Room at the Top

Name: Mshael Ali Hassan Al Maruf

Introduction

The Bradford family that produced John Braine (1922–1987) was able to escape the
working class and become the lower middle class. By the time Braine was born in 1922, his
father had transitioned from a child labourer in the woollen mills to a corporate sewage works
superintendent. Mother of Braine worked as a librarian.

The family was Catholic, which effectively kept them outside of Bradford's traditional
middle-class Protestant culture. At the age of sixteen, Braine dropped out of his Catholic
grammar school and worked at a number of low-paying white-collar jobs until finding
employment at the Bingley Library. Between 1940 and 1943, Braine worked as a telegrapher for
the Royal Navy.

Braine left his job as a librarian in 1950 and relocated to London to become a freelance
writer. His social standing was raised to middle class as a result of his new job, and he no longer
belonged to the lower middle class. Aside from his sporadic contributions to the New Statesman,
Braine had purposefully adopted the prized position of intellectual in Britain.

Braine moved more into the realm of the imagination and away from everyday reality
between 1952 and 1954. Readers and reviewers alike warmly embraced Room at the Top when it
was released in 1957, and Braine's name was associated with that of Kingsley Amis and John
Osborne as another Angry Young critic of society (Marwick, 1984). Despite authoring twelve
fiction works, Braine is most known for his debut book, Room at the Top, which was later made
into a popular 1959 movie.The path a young man took to succeed in his work was the subject of
the novel Room at the Top. The narrator, Joe Lampton, was a mill worker's son who earned an
accounting degree while imprisoned in Germany. He made the decision to join the higher classes

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of Warley in order to rise beyond social snobbery and envy of the affluence of those around him.
He started dating Susan Brown, the daughter of the richest and most influential man in the area,
and Alice Aisgill, an older woman who was married to a successful businessman. Joe Lampton
married Susan after leaving Alice and quickly rose to the top.

A terrible vehicle tragedy claimed the life of Alice. In the last scene of Room at the Top,
Joe is seen struggling inebriatedly to deal with his regret at Alice's passing and his successful
plot to marry upward. Joe battled with his conscience, forced to live with his shame and
responsibility for what had happened to Alice, even though no one held him accountable for
Alice's passing (Kalliny, 2006).

According to Wilison (2007), conventional critics criticised the book and painted Joe
Lambton as a "lout and lecher", "a money grabber," and an opportunist preoccupied with
boosting his social prestige at the expense of women's feelings. Reading the negative
assessments of the characters "delayed his purchase of the work," admits Colin Wilson, one of
the movement's initial furious men whose book The Outsider (1956) symbolised its intellectual
doctrine. Wilson began to read the book and quickly discovered that it was a "excellent novel".

Joe Lampton was a thoughtful and sympathetic man. When he allowed himself to get into
an affair with a married woman in the play group, she was just as willing as he was. He was
sexually honest. In the meantime, Susan fell pregnant, forcing Joe to leave the married ladies and
wed Susan. The accident's reason was not made clear in the book. The people in the book made it
clear to Joe that he was not the accident's immediate cause; yet, when he gave in to pragmatism,
Joe accepted his penalty of having to live with guilt. Braine's statement was open to
interpretation since it lacked a definite conclusion.

The true story that inspired the novel was one that actually happened to Braine. Braine
had a high-class woman as his lover. In the real world, the upper-class woman left Braine in
favour of marrying a man who belonged to her social class. A typical middle-class household
was created for Braine when he married a middle-class schoolteacher. The altered ending of the
book demonstrated the contrast between what was anticipated and what really occurred,

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demonstrating that no significant shift in post-war Britain existed to account for the rage and
protest shown in the author's fiction. According to Richard Lester, "Room at the Top will tell you
how the young products of the Welfare state were feeling and behaving." (Marwick, 1984).

Joe completed his studies at the university on the state's dime. Joe believed that his
degree would guarantee him a respectable position with a salary that would allow him to live
comfortably. More significantly, Joe thought that graduating would make him more like the
upper class; yet, he was degraded by his poor breed, and the system made sure that the wealthy
maintained their advantages.

Joe said that only Cambridge graduates held prominent positions and were in charge of
running the nation. The social outcry sprang from the fact that Joe had to give up his identity and
his love in order to accomplish his objectives. In a perfect society, Joe's efforts based on the
concepts of equal opportunity would allow him to accomplish his goals. For young men from the
working class, life was as difficult as it had always been, and the Welfare State did not make
things any better.

In Braine's Room at the Top, the post-World War II economic, social, and working class
realities in Britain are comprehensively, honestly, realistically, and richly documented. As a
result, the study will use post-war era traits to demonstrate how the novel depicts earlier
circumstances.

The wealth of information about ordinary people's daily lives makes it a priceless
historical record of a crucial decade in Britain during which the social order underwent steady
upheaval, upending long-held traditions and establishing the modern system that Britain today
enjoys. Because nobody stays young or furious forever, the moniker "Angry Young Men"
implied that their demise was inevitable. The improvements finally materialised, but it took time
and patience—qualities that young people sometimes lack. They were aware of this as they got
older. Since the movement existed for 10 years, from the 1950s to the 1960s, their literature was
seen as periodic and local.

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Statement of research problem

The study illustrates the combination between a love story and a social story. Joe's two
relationships with Alice and Suzan make it a love story, while the book's discussion of the issue
of celebrity and wealth makes it a social story. Joe is very fixated on these items. Since it is
written in the first person, everyone may put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist. The
corrosive influence of money on human values is also highlighted in Braine's story; it may lead
to corruption and the destruction of one's humanity. Joe becomes aware of the hollowness of the
objectives he had set for himself.

Research questions

1- What are the effects of the love conflict on the hero of the novel in Room at the Top?
2- How does Room at the Top show the human values?

Research objectives

This study aims

1. To demonstrate the political shortcomings of the Welfare State as shown in Room at the
Top and the causes of such shortcomings.

2. To show that because the impoverished cannot afford moral excess, poverty cannot be
good.

Literature Review

Hollway (1958, p.78) attacked Joe Lampton for harbouring resentment toward persons of
greater social standing. For instance, Joe had doomed Jack Wales, a wealthy young man and
Susan's superior suitor, despite the fact that he had a somewhat empathetic personality and had
gentlemanly traits like temperance and good sportsmanship. Joe, who denigrated the upper class

4
and was unable to adjust his negative attitudes, swiftly fostered class animosity. But Joe yearned
for their social standing. Like the other authors, Braine belonged to a school of persistent realism
that emphasised the portrayal of northern industrial life. This working-class book reinforced the
'we and them' division of society based on class.

O'Connor (1962) viewed Room at the Top as a major social text because of how it dealt
with class, including its rigidities, inequities, and rivalries, as well as—more critically for the
time—the opportunities for change and movement. Older traditions were dissolving and a new
working class in Britain was shoving into prominence, was the novel's persistent theme.

From working-class Dufton to middle-class Walrey, then to upper class, Joe Lampton
was transitioning. Braine soon started to distinguish between social classes based on the
accompanying material possessions, such as opulent clothing, furnishings, and vehicles. Joe had
a good eye for cataloguing tangible items, and the novel was scrupulous in capturing every last
detail.

Paul (1965) saw the story as having a plot about a particular kind of cunning Yorkshire
climber, a result of Welfare State politics that succeeded in educating him in new schools but
produced rapacious monsters craving for wealth and position. Since "there was much to be said
for a study of the newest of apostle of the gospel where there's muck, there's money," Paul
critiqued the book.

The novel's style was also destroyed by the dull language and the amateurish technique
chosen to narrate it—the powerful guy looking back with regret. Even so, the book was
influential at the time. Nothing John Braine has done since he hit his objective with such
precision, according to Paul, who evaluated Braine.

Since Braine was solely renowned for Room at the Top, settling for a single
accomplishment, many critics agreed with Paul's assessment. Paul perceived the book as being
atypically new, non-political in the strict sense, with a hero who made the most of his existence
in the Welfare State that he wanted but did not enjoy.

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 According to McDowell (1970), Joe Lampson was both critical and intrigued by the big
world of the upper class, sceptical of its hollowness and fleeting pleasures as well as its
materialistic slant, and charmed by its glitz and ease. Joe Lampton regarded every aspect of
civilization with disdain, from the tangible objects to the way that each class of people behaved
and even the specifics of their language.

He was very different from the wealthy spenders who attended public schools in the
previous generation. Although he came from a lower class but had a strong education and
training, at the end, "Lampton entirely sacrifices to the golden calf".Joe Lampton, who combined
global achievement with personal shame, was in transition between his working-class roots and a
new middle-class identity, according to Laing (1983).

Something was wrong with anger. Joe was essentially restless, sick of the same old
British way of life, and willing to defy societal norms. He was from a less than desirable
background and area. As a kind of protest, Braine challenged the Establishment and broke
through cultural reserves. James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) was a
novel about an author, but Braine recommended the young writers of the 1950s should instead
examine and introduce the lives of the working class.

A cultural revolution occurred in Britain between the early 1950s and the 1970s,
according to Marwick (1984). In British society, there was a shift in social views and conduct.
As the novel was turned into a movie, there was a clash between the revolutionary filmmakers
and the Establishment-minded censorship, which is how Room at the Top conveyed these
alterations.

With the exception of changing the sexually passionate moments into ones that were
acceptable according to English conservative customs, the film stayed true to the novel's
essential story lines. Marwick claimed that the censors' objections to expressions like "damn you
to hell you stupid bitch" provided a clear window into the prevalent rigidity of the higher classes
of British society in their formal demeanour. In addition, there are criteria for a general decrease
in the use of terms like "bitch," "bloody," "bastard," and most importantly, "desire."

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 The producers ultimately had the power to persuade the board to allow them to use a little
more language than it would ordinarily want. By the end, they had omitted the passion and
altered bitch to witch. The sex scenes were regarded as European and not British.

According to Marwick, Brain's Room at the Top, which details the material triumph of its
working-class protagonist Joe Lampton, is the most well-known post-war book about class
mobility. Joe had to overcome the upper-class power structure's opposition. Ten years later, in
the 1940s, Lampton narrates the book in a retrospective perspective. This context created a
chronological framework with particular political significance that presented the circumstances
of the immediate post-war years.

Reading Lampton's admission that his younger self "was of greater quality, more
emotionally sensitive and receptive to others" made the reader wonder what to make of the
affluent Lampton who was rethinking his selfish journey and success (Braine, 1957). The
conclusion of this story was that Lampton's ascent up the social ranks lost him his real love. This
deal gave him the appearance of a "Modern Faust". The major temperament of the working class
fiction of the day was stagnation rather than movement, demonstrating that ideological views did
not align with economic realities.

According to Stevenson (1993), the effects of the Second World War on Britain persisted
throughout the 1950s and subsequent decades. However, by the middle of the 1950s, it was
evident that society had "shaken itself" into a new form. Numerous books captured the changing
socioeconomic structure of the 1950s, which created new relationships between social groups
and prospects for social mobility within them.

Models for this new social mobility phenomena were supplied by Brain's Room at the
Top and John Wain's Hurry on Down. Joe Lampton, the protagonist of Brain, was resolved to
struggle his way to monetary success while simultaneously displaying his contempt for
traditional societal norms. In the end, a lucrative career and a match with a wealthy woman kept
Joe Lampton safe.

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 The similar fate awaited other Angry Young Men characters, like Wain in Hurry on
Down and Kingsley Amis' Jim Dixon in the social comedy Lucky Jim, which featured heroes
who were protected by wealth and marriage.

Instead of the desire for society's change that they seemed to toy with, these authors from
the 1950s were inclined towards reconciliation with society, as seen by their ends. According to
Stevenson, the rage in Angry Young Men was mostly driven by self-indulgence rather than
political motivation.

According to Browne and Merz (2003), Joe was a wealthy man in the 1950s who looked
back regretfully on the early post-war years. Joe considered how his character had become
increasingly tainted as he had allowed ambition to triumph over love for his own sake. The
young, ambitious Joe used his sexual relationships as a way to advance in society since he was
unable to confront the system and so he adopted its rules.

The work was written in a realistic, down-to-earth style that criticised the depreciated
conditions of post-war Britain. It may also be seen as a cautionary tale. Joe's forthright criticism
of his self-sacrifice provided the narrative psychological depth.

Leach (2004) made a statement on the movie based on the best-selling book at the time,
and he said that the film's realistic approach was a first for British cinema. "It was a transitional
text, but its realistic approach to social and sexual topics became immensely contentious".

Wilson (2007) characterised the Angry Young Men's new protagonist as a rebel who was
against all social distinctions. They were despised by the Establishment, and many traditional
critics—including Humphrey Carpenter—rejected them from the British literary scene.

According to Wilson's testimony, the movement was founded on a genuine political

protest that hoped for action. Joe, the protagonist of Room at the Top, does not wish to abolish
the class structure, according to Britain. But he would assert that success is what matters going
forward. Who your father was shouldn't matter.

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 The innate human desire for liberty and justice was articulated by Braine in the novel's
earlier interpretation, a fight that began with Rousseau and culminated in the French Revolution.
Wilson stated that Rousseau was "essentially the patron saint of the furious movement,"
contradicting the popular belief that he was the innovator who first presented the intellectual
worldview of the Angry Young age.

Man was born free and is bound everywhere, according to Rousseau, who wrote about
this in his book The Social Contract (Wilson 2007). Rousseau created the thesis that man's
enslavement to Establishment was a result of civilisation.

A society where each person had the absolute freedom to influence governmental
decisions would be perfect. The Angry Young Men were inspired by Rousseau's idea of limitless
freedom, which fuelled their revolt against the system.

Wilson was impressed that Braine had abandoned the "defeat premise that had dominated
the serious book since Goethe's Young Werther, whose suicide had sparked a plague of imitators
throughout Europe," as Wilson put it. The protagonists of serious literature have traditionally
been men who had lost.

There were certainly many heroes who weren't tragic, but among professional authors, it
seemed as though the underlying assumption was that you couldn't succeed. Wilson
complimented John Braine for bucking the tradition and inventing a smart hero with a happy,
upbeat viewpoint who ultimately succeeded in attaining his objectives.

Jimmy Porter and Joe Lampton, the protagonists of Room at the Top, were described by
Kalliney (2007) as the most well-known protagonists who were dissatisfied lower middle class
people who expected post-war prosperity to fulfil their social and economic aspirations but it did
not provide real opportunities. "Angry texts that conveyed a feeling of sharply conflicted, very
ambiguous class- awareness" were created from the severe disappointment.

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Discussion

Joe Lampton, who was demobilised at the close of World War II, has begun a new
position as an accountant with the Municipal Treasury in Warley, a market town in Yorkshire.
He comes from a working class family and was raised in the industrial town of Dufton. He is 25
years old. He was in the RAF, but he was captured for the most of the conflict and used that time
to learn accounting. Due to the fact that Joe's parents were murdered by a stray bomb during the
war, he has been living with his aunt and uncle. He aspires to a career that pays $1,000 year and
is driven to succeed.

He stays with the Thompsons in Warley, who reside in the most wealthy neighbourhood,
referred to as "T'top" locally. He joins the community amateur theatrical club when the
Thompsons introduce him to it, where he meets Susan Brown, the 19-year-old daughter of a
prominent local businessman. Aisgill, who is nine years older than him, is also introduced to
him. She is unhappily married to a businessman who is rumoured to be having an affair with his
secretary, and she is likewise childless and without children.

Even though Susan is apparently the girlfriend of Jack Wales, a wealthy former RAF
officer with a stellar military career, Joe is attracted to her and asks her to the ballet. After Susan
accepts, they have a good time together.

After that, Joe laughs at himself for believing he could ever marry Susan as he drives by
Jack and Susan's expansive and pricey residences. Following a play rehearsal at the theatre, Joe
and Alice drive to Sparrow Hill, which has a view of Warley, where Alice seduces him. In lieu
of falling in love, Alice advises Joe to make "loving friends" with her instead.

Jack is still attending Cambridge while Joe is still seeing Susan. Joe continues to pursue
his sexual relationship with Alice by seeing her at the apartment of one of her friends on a
regular basis. When Joe informs his aunt that he is in love with Susan while in Dufton for
Christmas, she cautions him that Susan would break his heart and advises him to choose a lady in
his own social class.

10
 Joe chastises Alice for putting herself down when she confesses that she previously
modelled in her underwear for an artist during their meeting at the apartment. During their heated
exchange, she refers to him as a prude with a limited perspective from the province. They
consent to their relationship ending. Soon later, Joe runs into Susan at a party and they decide to
meet the next day. At their second encounter, they declare their love for one another, but Joe is
preoccupied with his victory over Jack and the possibility of making Susan's father offer him a
decent job. He also considers Alice's importance to him.

Joe is dismayed by her parents' attempts to separate them and grows frustrated by Susan's
unwillingness to have sex with him. He and Alice make up, and they start having sex again.
When Susan learns about the connection, she breaks up the relationship with Joe, who is happy
that he can now focus all of his physical and emotional energy on Alice.

While on vacation in Dorset, Joe and Alice declare their love for one another and their
intention to be married when Alice arranges a divorce. A few days later, Joe's buddy Charles
warns him that getting married to Alice would be disastrous for his life since she doesn't have
any money of her own and a divorce would be a public relations disaster for him. He also claims
that Alice would leave him since she is used to living a luxurious lifestyle. Charles assists Joe in
writing a letter to Susan in which he declares his love for her once more and vows to end his
relationship with Alice.

The letter makes Susan very happy, and she meets Joe at a remote area close to Warley.
She commands him to terminate their engagement right now in a letter to Alice. Joe declines
because he wants to inform Alice in person once she leaves the hospital while she is recovering
from major surgery. After a confrontation, Susan consents to Joe's aggressive attempts and says
to him, "You won't need her anymore, will you?"

Joe hasn't communicated with Alice in two months. Joe is given an invitation by Susan's
father to lunch at his club and is informed about Susan's pregnancy. Joe is informed that he may
marry Susan with his approval as long as Joe ends his relationship with Alice right away.
Additionally, he offers Joe a job in his company with a salary of $1000 year.

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 Joe meets Alice at her friend's apartment and informs her that their relationship is
finished since he is engaged to Susan. When Joe departs, Alice becomes intoxicated and heads in
the direction of Sparrow Hill. She is murdered as she collides violently with a wall. The next
day, after learning of her passing, Joe boards a bus for a nearby town, where he gets wasted and
has sex with a lady he meets in a bar.

Two buddies from the theatrical society go seeking for him when he passes out in the
street and are finally successful in finding him. They reassure him that no one holds him
responsible for Alice's passing when he admits that he killed her. That's the problem, he answers.

Diversity in social classes remained a defining characteristic of British society. The

British were and still aware of the inequalities in class, and this awareness helped them define
their own identities. The working class, often known as the lower class, was one of three primary
groups in British society, along with the upper and middle classes.

Before World War I, the British social structure was tight and severe, and people stayed
in their places of birth. The British government's post-World War II welfare policies helped the
working class become more conscious and provided them the chance to become middle- and
upper-class citizens. In Room at the Top, a protagonist who was educated and from the working
class was given the opportunity to challenge more rigid older societal norms in order to advance
in social rank.

The old-established British class system was upset by the increasing social mobility,
which contributed to the disorderly social tensions that persisted in postwar Britain. The barriers
between the two classes have to be crossed by the new working class hero. The main character
had to go above his own sense of inadequacy as well as the irritating experience to transcend
upper-class supremacy and establish his worthiness of the new class. In the books of class and
behaviour, the main struggle was between the protagonist and his society.

The idea of a story about class and behaviour was not new to English literature. Thomas
Hardy employed the topic of a young man from the lower or lower middle classes trying to enter

12
a more metropolitan society in the nineteenth century. Jude the Obscure by Hardy, published in
1895, is the story of a working-class man who had a desire but found it hard to realise (Gindin,
1963). Jude stood out from his impoverished surroundings because of who he was as a person
and for his academic supremacy. Jude furthermore possessed the required ambition and was
prepared to put in significant effort to raise his social rank.

Jude lacked the requisite high breed ancestry; hence none of these individual
characteristics were sufficient. The limitations were stricter and more severe; the system did not
let him to enrol in college because it was once seen as a luxury of the upper class. People with
little means could not afford to attend college. In contrast to Jude the obscure, Joe Lampton, the
protagonist of Room at the Top, was able to advance in society thanks to Butler's Act, which
allowed him to complete his university education at the state's cost.

The working class culture was condemned by the British system of class as being low,
uninteresting, and primitive. It belonged to the obscene class with a lesser culture. The higher
classes, on the other hand, were thought to be smart, intelligent, graceful, and sensitive. The
upper classes were the ones from which the lower classes sought to inherit their privileges. Joe
had a right to want to be a part of the affluent classes because he belonged to the lower culture.
Humans naturally aspire to live better lives, but Joe wanted to join them because he felt inferior
and he was determined to go up the social ladder as soon and as far as possible.

Joe's desire to join those at the T' Top, as he refers to it in the book, was immediately
apparent from the title of Room at the Top. The wealthy and elderly Joe Lampton was
reminiscing about his trip from his hometown of the impoverished Dufton to the wealthy
Warley. Joe transitioned from a comfortable setting to one that was completely foreign, but he
was glad he would not be seeing any of the dull and annoying working class residents from his
hometown. Joe once referred to them as zombies. Since there were "No more zombies, Joe, no
more zombies," Joe felt at rest.

Braine discussed the class conflict that was prevalent in Britain in the 1950s. The wealthy
maintained their privileges and continued to despise the underclass. In response, the lower

13
classes started to doubt the validity of their advantages. Joe Lampton, in contrast to his class-
conscious relatives, objected to the tangible wealth, such as the "Victorian palace" and the
"Bentleys, Lagondas, Daimlers, and Jaguars parked everywhere" (p.72).

Joe criticised the upper classes' superficial pursuits and staged demeanour, saying they
were "so well-mannered and polite and agreeable- but what's beneath it all? They have witnessed
acts of violence and death that you would think would drive anyone insane. Yet there is no sign
of it. Everyone's hands are covered with blood.

Joe drew attention to their mysterious advantages, which were acquired just by virtue of
birth: "Jack had a wealthy father to take care of him and pay for his studies. He had plenty of
time to squander. I was unable to... let those opulent bastards, who had all the fun, to be heroes.
Let them cover the cost of their privileges.

Joe explained their seeming superiority as a natural outcome of leading a gracious life
rather than as a result of personal characteristics. Honor, like freedom, is a luxury for individuals
with independent incomes, according to Joe in the book. People who were wealthy could afford
to be honourable and to meet all of their demands. However, if he had hungry mouths at home, a
poor guy could be obliged to steal.

When it came to material possessions, Joe was especially astute, observing every
discrepancy between the affluent and the less fortunate, such as the kind of suit each group wore,
the kind of car each group drove, or the kind of alcohol each group drank. Insight into how the
younger generation felt angry and upset that the traditional boundaries of class still persisted
came from the emphasis placed on the symbolic portrayal of materialistic inequities. Reality
revealed that the deeply rooted British class system continued to dominate social life.

Joe was particularly perceptive when it came to worldly goods, noting every distinction
between the wealthy and the less fortunate, such as the type of suit each group wore, the type of
vehicle each group drove, or the type of booze each group consumed. The focus placed on the
symbolic representation of materialistic disparities brought to light how the younger generation

14
was irritated and bothered that the traditional borders of class still existed. Reality showed that
social life was still governed by the deeply ingrained British class structure.

In the ancient Britain, each class embraced its custom-made system and adhered to its
recognised intuitions. The wealthy elite was comfortable with the status quo, while the working
class had adopted new values. Joe Lampton was keen to fit in with the upper-class people. It
sounded as though the wood fire's cosy crackling, the tinkling of dinnerware and the splash of
flowing water were all sounds that were created specifically for my enjoyment.

Reminding the working class members of their barbaric past allowed the higher classes to
counteract their antagonistic behaviour. Susan's parents' questioning of him about wealthy and
powerful individuals who resided in north Britain, where Joe had originated, was an act of
conceit and superiority. They pretended to be shocked while saying, "Oh, you must have met
him. Old Chick was impossible to overlook.

However, their real message was that Joe's sort of people—poor people—could not
interact with that kind of people—rich people. It's a well-known game, Joe explained, and its
goal is to make those who make less money than you look bad. Joe was angry at the wealthy
Jack Wales because he was tired of the game. Because of the working class' impolite behaviour,
Mrs. Brown's cheeks grew scarlet. "Jack had been very nice, speaking to him almost as if he
were human, and naturally it had gone to the creature's head," she reasoned.

Joe was rendered less human by Mrs. Brown. Joe was negatively impacted by her attitude
and said, "I've never in my life felt so absolutely friendless". According to Braine's personal
experience, social conflict between the affluent and the poor is a widespread problem in British
society and is not a personal matter.

Joe was quite class-conscious and sensitive. When Alice asked Joe if he could drive a car,
he felt ashamed. Oddly enough, yeah, he replied. Joe emphasised his lack of wealth by
responding that she must have thought such since "my father didn't own an engineering works or
a mill, but it doesn't mean that... I'm not a good driver.

15
 When a wealthy guy declined to buy Joe a drink because he was poor, Joe felt degraded.
Joe said, "Holylake had, in essence, refused to give me a drink. Hoylake was the richest person
in the group, so he purchased the drink out of etiquette rather than out of charity (p.122). For Joe,
embarrassment and poverty were related. Joe yearned to be "free of stress, anxiety, and
humiliation".

Joe experienced the shame of poverty, which gave him pain and unease. All the
humiliation I had through at the hands of Holylake, the Storrs, Jack Wales, and the Browns.
Because of "accumulated wrath and humiliation," he was tortured. Additionally, hunger, need,
and suffering were all comparable to poverty. "The frigid bedroom and the steamy living-room
with the screaming radio" were present at Dufton. stress over examinations, a job, or the cost of
new clothing.

Joe, on the other hand, equated money with power, dignity, pride, happiness, and
security. In Joe's eyes, Jack Wales "represented the power of money, he was another king, and
they were all paying court to him" as he was served by labourers (p.69). Because there was a
$100,000 barrier separating the wealthy from genuine suffering, they were unable to understand
what it meant to be truly miserable. Rich guys "appeared sure, safe and sturdy," in Joe's opinion.

Although Joe was fascinated by the glitzy lights of the wealthy lifestyle, he decried the
rigid social inequality and was aware that the working class had been subjected to immense
injustice and exploitation by the higher classes. Joe and other working-class heroes experienced
this tension between personal striving and societal responsibility.

Although Angry Young Men literature was engaged in the social reality of its readers,
according to Musgrave (1990), their visions were incoherent. The chance of experiencing new
aristocratic delights was the only clear and evident vision the new protagonists had because they
were unable to adhere to any substantial or solid ideologies, which prevented them from
functioning and caused them stress and instability. They intended to fast transition from the
world of poverty to the world of wealth in order to seize the opportunity.

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Findings

Britain was turning from an Empire into an island during the decade that Room at the Top
chronicled. A long-standing political, social, and cultural framework was upended by the
Welfare State programme. The book demonstrated how the political dynamics in Britain in the
1950s remained unchanged.

Room at the Top portrayed the impact of British society's development, notably on young
working-class males who received an education as a result of the Butler Act. The Welfare State
gave the working class people the chance but not the resources to climb.

The difference between the ideology and its application was enormous. The welfare state
has not only achieved success. The members of the new working class have now begun their
quest for self-realization. However, the new prospect brought feelings of disorientation,
insecurity, and loneliness along with the promise of new pleasures, and the new generation was
torn apart by two worlds.

While the traditional set of conventions had offered a certain psychological stability even
if it meant suppressing individual desires, the new generation was torn out by two worlds. The
literary approach used to recreate an accurate portrait of British society in the 1950s was realism.

By exposing the unfavourable characteristics of the prevailing political system's practises

in Room at the Top, Braine expressed an adversarial attitude towards it. In reality, as a tactic for
resistance, Braine chose to focus the limelight on negative and even noble parts of the system.

British politicians fought in World War II to defend the Empire and to uphold the British
way of life. Instead, Britain was becoming an island and losing its colonies abroad. The once-
proud British economy entered a protracted period of despair. Furthermore, the working class
community suffered greatly as a result of such choices.

17
Conclusion

Rich individuals did not experience rationing or hunger after the War since they had the
resources to buy food. People like Joe Lampton were the ones who experienced the hardships of
rationing as well as many forms of unfairness and humiliation. There was remained a feeling of
uncertainty and destitution even after the rationing era had ended and full employment was
attainable. The working circumstances were unfair; people from the working class had to labour
long hours for meagre wages that did not guarantee a dignified existence.

Young men from the working class who received an education under the Butler's Act,
like Joe Lampton, found themselves working for Cambridge and Oxford graduates. As a result,
the previous social privilege establishments were still in place. While polluting disadvantaged
areas, the political policy preserved a clean environment for the wealthy. The majority of good
individuals died in the war that politicians started. His parents were killed, leaving only
effeminate ladies and women. Rich people were not impacted by the War in the meantime. They
were saved from its misery by their money.

Joe Lampton and other irate characters voiced hatred for the class structure, which had
existed in Britain from its inception. British citizens have long been divided into upper, middle,
and working classes. Each class had its own own identity, way of life, and goals. Hardworking
middle class people might enter the top classes thanks to the welfare state, but it was not as
simple as it seemed.

Joe had to overcome both external and internal challenges in order to enter the upper
classes. The biases of the higher classes were the focus of the external ones. The battle within
himself proved to be more difficult; he had to overcome a strong sense of inferiority and adjust
to the new customs of the higher classes. The younger generation was troubled by the rising
social mobility.

Joe Lampton witnessed the opulent and thriving lifestyle of the wealthy. In contrast to
impoverished individuals who did not have bathtubs, they owned Victorian houses, large

18
vehicles, and costly clothing. Joe coveted individuals, like Jack Wales, who received the
automatic benefits of a hereditary position inside the Establishment, and he yearned to enter this
society.

Joe aspired to rise up the social scale and accumulate as much wealth as he could. The
young Joe's deeper yearnings for fulfilment of self were believed to be satisfied by money.
Young Joe said that the prolonged experience of lack and pain had elevated and sharpened the
workers' minds.

In contrast to earlier bourgeois heroes, who sought self realisation via a philosophical
search for life's purpose, he sought it instead through a much more practical pursuit of physical
pleasures and personal fulfilment. Joe Lampton had social aspirations, both for the symbolic
fulfilment of receiving the better grades and for the practical benefits of being able to purchase
and enjoy things that were previously beyond of reach for individuals in his class.

Joe showed sympathy for the working people, but he did not advocate for a certain class
viewpoint. Joe disliked how the system was expressed. He struggled for direct and concrete self-
progress since he did not have a sense of class unity or public identity. He looked for a high-class
lady to assure material and social luxury.

Joe Lampton's wages were insufficient, and the working conditions were unpleasant.
Thus, he made the choice to wed Susan Brown, a wealthy woman who served as his ticket to
affluence. He had to give up his love and peace of mind, though, as a price. The conclusion was
gloomy; Joe was left in a mood of frustration and sour cynicism.

Joe Lampton was preoccupied with avoiding becoming a destitute zombie, but by the
book's end, he had transformed into a prosperous, successful zombie. He was wealthy, yet he had
no life. After the expensive social upgrading, happiness did not necessarily follow. As a result of
his aspirations, Joe Lampton lost his true love.World War II's Angry Young authors reverted to a
conventional topic and structure from the eighteenth century. The realistic book was the most
effective literary genre for Braine to achieve his goal of accurately portraying the sorrows and

19
difficulties of the working class. Details about employment, money, sex, and achievement were
central to the storyline.

In order to protect the English identity, which was under attack from the ascendant
American power, the book revived the well-established nineteenth-century preoccupations of the
English: the specifics of local life. Although Braine was careful not to overdo it, Braine used
dialect, the vernacular of their working class neighbourhoods, to accentuate the working class
mood. A picture of social reality was presented in the book, and it was accurately depicted.

Furious young men Like the lives of its practitioners, literature was regarded as obscure
and common. The authors provided a tangible, real reading of human existence. Highbrow
reviewers dismissed it as being just periodic literature. When seen from a different perspective, it
was a significant record of the unrest within a country that was transitioning from one political
and social stage to another.

Such writing would help other civilizations through the same change process to
understand the difficulties of their youth and their transitory period. The author of Room at the
Top succeeded in exposing the aims, goals, and dreams of a generation of young men who were
long suppressed, and it is now regarded as one of the key turning points in the history of
contemporary British literature. Understanding these aspirations and concerns revolves on the
word "Top" in the title.

20
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