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MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature The Portrayal of the English Society in the Work of Dick Francis Diploma thesis Brno 2008 Supervisor: Written by: PhDr. Pavel Doležel, CSc. Andrea Vymazalová Prohlášení: Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci zpracovala samostatně a použila jen prameny uvedené v seznamu literatury. Souhlasím, aby práce byla uložena na Masarykově univerzitě v Brně v knihovně Pedagogické fakulty a zpřístupněna ke studijním účelům. Declaration: I declare that I have compiled this diploma thesis by myself and that I have used only the sources listed in the bibliography. Hereby I agree with filing the thesis into the library at the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University in Brno and with using it for studying purposes. V Brně 14.4. 2008 Andrea Vymazalová ………………….……..... Acknowledgements: My sincere thanks are due to PhDr. Pavel Doležel, CSc. for his kind help, comments, views and valuable advice that he provided me through the work as my supervisor. CONTENTS Introduction 5 PART ONE 1.1. English Society 7 1.1.1. Social Classes 8 1.1.1.1. The Upper Class 10 1.1.1.2. The Middle Class 16 1.1.1.3. The Working Class 21 1.1.2. Social Behaviour and Social Rituals 27 1.1.2.1. Attempting to Be Invisible 27 1.1.2.2. Clubs and Gentlemen’s Clubs 29 1.1.2.3. Greeting Etiquette 32 1.1.2.4. Small Talk Rules 34 1.1.2.5. Politeness Principle 36 1.1.2.6. Tea Drinking 37 1.1.2.7. The English and Horse Racing 39 PART TWO 2.1. Real World in Literature 45 2.1.1. Setting and Characters in Works of Dick Francis 46 2.1.2. Dick Francis and his View of the English Society 49 2.1.2.1. Social Behaviour and Some Social Rules Pictured in Francis’s Books 50 Conclusion 68 Resumé 70 Summary 71 Bibliography 72 APPENDICES Appendix 1: The Short Biography of Dick Francis 1 Appendix 2: Dick Francis’s Literary Career 5 Appendix3:SummariesofBooksMentionedintheThesis 7 INTRODUCTION This thesis deals with the English society and with the way how it is pictured in the work of a contemporary English writer Dick Francis. Its purpose is to demonstrate that a reader does not have to study thick volumes of various encyclopaedias in order to receive some knowledge about a certain nation, but that such information can sometimes be learnt from popular literature. Dick Francis is one of my favourite writers and I have read almost all his books. My bachelor thesis was focused on Francis’s work as such – it analysed the settings, plots and characters of his novels. The style, language and Czech translations were also mentioned. During reading his novels I realized that they are not only detective stories set into the horse racing environment, but also works that portray the English society in a natural and readable way. Therefore, in my diploma thesis I have decided to concentrate more on the English society and to study its social behaviour and rituals. The first part of the thesis provides information about social classes into which the society has been divided, i.e. the upper class, the middle class and the working class, and it also depicts their lifestyles. This chapter examines the areas where the class differences are visible the most – places of living and how they are furnished, education and occupations, or the language and accent that are used in a certain class. This part also mentions behaviour of the English – their inhibition and restraint, and conversely their desire to gather in various clubs; the rules of small talk and the greeting etiquette, and their ubiquitous politeness. Some space is devoted to well-known English phenomena such as gentlemen’s clubs, tea drinking and horse racing. The second part begins with a brief description of settings and characters in Francis’s books. Some of the pieces of information that are comprised in the first part are applied on several Francis’s books that were written in the second half of the 20 th century – Bolt, Break In, Dead Cert, Enquiry, Forfeit, For Kicks, Knock Down, Odds Against, Reflex and Risk. Extracts from these books are utilized to support some of the ideas that are discussed in the first part of the thesis. PART ONE 1.1. ENGLISH SOCIETY Each nation has its own distinctive features by means of which it can be distinguished from other societies. No matter which aspects of life these characteristics are related to, when observed, they are a good tool to get acquainted with a particular society and to understand better its behaviour, social life and customs. The nation living on the British Isles is not an exception. There are certain stereotypes that immediately come to everyone’s mind when the English are being talked about. They are perceived as reserved and conservative people, associating with men and women of the same social status only, who spend their leisure time sitting over a cup of strong black tea with milk, talking endlessly about the weather. Nevertheless, when examined more thoroughly, it becomes apparent that this society has its foibles as each other nation. The English behave according to certain rules that each person has gradually been learning to obey since their birth, and they do not think why they do so. At the same time, they usually are not able to explain their rules and conventions to a foreigner because they take them for granted. 1.1.1. SOCIAL CLASSES As Halsey claims, ‘a class-ridden society (…) is the common judgement on Britain made by social observers’ (Halsey 1986:26). It confirms the fact that the social class is a phenomenon that permeates the whole English nation, and that significantly influences lives of its citizens. The class is the environment which a person is born into, and it is a factor that, to a considerable extent, determines the future lives of all members of the class in both professional and personal aspects of life. It does not only predetermine which school people will attend or what kind of occupation they will do when they are adults, it also strictly defines the circle of friends with whom they are allowed to spend time. A great number of books have been written about the social division of England and the criteria according to which the society has been divided. In the past, the division of the nation was not complicated – on the one side there was the ruler of the country who possessed both wealth and power, together with his family and the aristocracy, on the other side there were poor peasants who cultivated their master’s fields and worked for him in the woods. When the feudal system was approaching its end, another group of people came to existence – merchants and craftsmen. In the course of the 18 th and 19 th centuries when Great Britain underwent the process of industrialization, the society gradually stratified into the upper, the middle and the working class, and this division has lasted until nowadays, although class differences mean less today to the majority of the British than they did in the past. However, this stratification is not as definite as it could seem since there is ‘adherence to no rigid orthodoxy as to the number of classes in twentieth-century Britain’ (Halsey 1986:30). For instance, Halsey (1986) distinguishes the middle, lower-middle and working class and completely ignores the upper class, Marwick (1996) concludes that the society is divided into the upper class, upper-middle class, middle class, lower- middle class and working class, whereas Oakland (1991) follows the same division as Halsey. For the purpose of this thesis, division into the three basic groups will be sufficient, although in some areas the sub-classes will be touched. Each class is characterized by various elements. The key terms here are e.g. family background, wealth, education, occupation, leisure time activities etc. Storry summarizes it in one sentence that speaks for all: ‘The upper class had stately homes, aristocratic backgrounds and posh accents; the middle class, semi- detached houses, suits and bowler hats; the working class, common accents, fish and chips and council flats’ (Storry 2000:203). However, the division is not as simple as that because ‘we judge social class in much more subtle and complex ways: precisely how you arrange, furnish and decorate your terraced house; not just the make of car you drive, but whether you wash it yourself on Sundays, take it to a car wash or rely on the English climate to sluice off the worst of the dirt for you. Similar fine distinctions are applied to exactly what, where, when, how and with whom you eat and drink; the words you use and how you pronounce them; where and how you shop; the clothes you wear; the pets you keep; how you spend your free time; the chat-up lines you use and so on.’ (Fox 2004:15) To determine which class a person belongs to is a complicated process. A widespread opinion is that the position on the social ladder is connected with money, i.e. who is wealthy is a member of the upper class. Although this idea is not always true, many people believe in it. Nevertheless, as Crowther admits, ‘people may have very little money yet still belong to the upper class, or be very rich and still think of themselves as working class’ (Crowther 2003:114). The previous sentence implies that nowadays people do not want to be allocated to one or the other class because of their earthly possessions, but they prefer to define their status according to their feelings.