Post WWII British Fiction (1940s and 1950s): moral allegory, fable fantasy; the AYM; "creolization of the British novel

 '24. THE ANGRY YOUNG MEN AND THE NATURE OF THEIR REVOLT ' 

 first wave : John Wain, Kingsley Amis, Iris Murdoch dramatist John Osborne
 * In the 1950s-1960s a new generation came about. They showed their disappointment with the arrangement of society, almost all of them were too young to have served in the war. Interesting – they managed to orient the novel on lower social classes and give it a fresh face. Parallel with picaresque tradition. They still continued on trying to make the novel return among popular genres, the novel’s popularity has many to do with its legibility. The novel didn’t tell the truth about life today but it offered it to wide social classes. Not to small intellectual circles. They considered themselves inheritors of the English tradition of realistic narrative  they link to Fielding, Dickens, and Thackeray
 * No clearly definable trends have appeared in English fiction since this school.

Their common features: Attempt to laugh at well-established society. Their hero comes from middle classes but he made himself alien to them. Now criticises the hypocrisy of middle-classes.

 Second wave : 2nd half of 1950s

Their characters are not angrier than of the 1st wave, but they come from the working-class.

They attacked outmoded social values left over from the prewar world. They rejected highly intellectual experimental prose of modernism and its cosmopolitan trends. They were criticizing and mocking snobs and influential personalities. They wanted to present contemporary life and a new type of hero, the '''anti-hero. The anti-hero''' belongs to the generation of disillusioned and discontented young intellectuals. Usually from the working class. These rebels face against the establishment, but want to find a place in society.

Kingsley Amis  Lucky Jim 
 * His works take a humorous yet highly critical look at British society. He mocks the pseudo-scholarly society, snobbery, and hypocrisy.

– The hero goes to a party of his disgusting professor Welch. A typical hero of the 1950 with typical situations. The tone of the book is anti-official. Jim has to go-along with his professor. He has to pretend he’s working on an academic thesis which will throw ‘pseudo-light’ onto ‘quasi-problems’ and he won’t do with neither. Characteristic is at the end he leaves to the city with a blonde. He goes a warm job – the end is not original.  That Uncertain Feeling  - it explored his disillusionment. He presents another anti-hero  One Fat Englishman  - it shows the love affairs of a conceited, snobbish professor.  Jake’s Thing  - a biting satire Against contemporary sex therapy and other fashionable methods distorting the nature of sex. In the end, Jake realizes that his loss of the libido might have been rather psychical in origin.
 * A bitingly satirical story of an non-heroic young college instructor.
 * Jim Dixon is a lecturer in medieval history. He comes from lower middle classes. He is radical. He is hailed as an angry young man. He tries to keep his post at the university, but everything turns out wrong. Finally, during his own lecture, he parodies all the eminent professors at the university.
 * He is dismissed, but wins a beautiful girl, Christine. He finds employment in the house of a rich aristocrat.

 John Wain

- a poet, critic, and novelist.  Hurry On Down  - a mock-picaresque story about a typical young man of his generation. Charles Loomley feels rootless and he goes through various unqualified jobs. He is making fun of any established social designation. His revolt ends in a compromise and he accepts a respectable job. He has a prospect for marriage with a girl from higher class.

 Strike the Father Dead  - a portrait of a young London jazz musician in the war.  A Winter in the Hills  - it is paced in Northern Wales. A middle-aged philologist realizes his former selfishness and he feels guilty. He becomes more engaged in the problems of ordinary people, represented by a bus driver.

John Braine, 1922

 Room at the Top  - popular novel. Reveals the forces regulating the fate of a young man in a class society. Joe Lampton is an educated and eagerly ambitious clerk from a working-class background. He is cynical to the establishment, but determined to exploit it. He gains his position only thanks to the love of Susan Brown, a rich manufacturer’s daughter. He indirectly causes the suicide of his former mistress Alice, who loved him deeply. His hero is a prototype of 1950s man. He gets to the highest places.

Alan Sillitoe

 Saturday night, Sunday morning 

 Osamělost přespolního běžce, novella

Born 1928. Most interesting characters. Arthur Seaton spends his evening drinking, fighting and with married women. Hates everything. He’s a born anarchist, and his anarchism shows egotism. He hates everything that interferes into his well-being and into his man’s inferior position.

Stan Bartsow
=The Way of love= His hero is unwillingly got used to his boring work and boring marriage.

Most of the ‘angry’ novels of the 1950 come from realistic tradition. End of 1950s they are unsatisfied with this realism:

Moral Alegory
Animal Farm (1945)