Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Pavla Havířová The Angry Young Men Movement Bachelor ’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. 2009 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature 2 I would like to thank my supervisor prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. for her kind help, patience and valuable advice. 3 Table of Contents I. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 5 II. Social background (Great Britain in the Nineteen-Fifties) .................................... 6 III. Who Were the Angry Young Men and What They Were Angry About.............. 15 III.I. The Angry Young Men and the Movement (definitions).................................. 16 III.II. What the Angry Young Men Were Angry About ............................................ 20 IV. Literary Reflections: How Were Contemporary Social Issues Reflected in the Writings of the Angry Young Men................................................................................. 22 IV.I. John Braine: Room at the Top ........................................................................... 22 IV.II. John Osborne: Look Back in Anger .................................................................. 27 IV. III. Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim ............................................................................. 33 IV.IV. Alan Sillitoe: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ; The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner ................................................................................................ 40 V. Legacy of the Angry Young Men ........................................................................ 49 V.I. Adaptations for Film (British New Wave).......................................................... 49 VI. Conclusion............................................................................................................ 55 VII. Works cited and consulted ............................................................................... 57 4 I. Introduction The topic of my bachelor’s diploma thesis is The Angry Young Men Movement. I chose this topic to examine this movement of British writers that emerged in the Nineteen-Fifties. The main argument of this thesis is to demonstrate that the Movement and the Angry Young Men have played an important role within culture and society, both in the decade they appeared in and also later on, and that they masterfully reacted on the social situation of the time. Furthermore, I would like to prove the Angry Young Men’s importance within culture by showing examples of how the culture has been inspired by the movement. This thesis is basically divided into two main parts concerning their content, or to be more precise the thesis is somewhat divided thematically. The first part, which is supposed to be more extensive, deals with the Angry Young Men and the Movement (differentiation and definitions of these two terms are provided further) in the literary and social and cultural context. Further on the thesis will mainly encompass just what the term of the Angry Young Men comprises, leaving the Movement somewhat behind. The second part thematically deals with what can be called “the legacy” of the Angry Young Men. The thesis will start with a chapter where there will be an introduction of the background from which the Movement and the Angry Young Men emerged. This means to provide a necessary description of the social situation in Great Britain in the Nineteen-Fifties as this thesis involves culture and society as well, not only authors of literature. Subsequently, both the terms (the Movement and the Angry Young Men) will be explained and described. We will discover the origins of and characterize the Angry Young Men: Who were they and what they were angry about? The next section of the thesis will be devoted to the connection of selected literary works of the Angry Young Men and the contemporary social situation of the Nineteen-Fifties. The task is to find 5 out what were the social issues that the Angry Young Men were actually angry about, and how they reflected these issues in their literary works. The literary works that will be examined are as follows: John Braine’s novel Room at the Top , John Osborne’s drama Look Back in Anger , Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim and last but not least Alan Sillitoe’s working-class novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and a short story called The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner by the same author. Each author’s work reflecting certain issues and problems is allotted one subsection. Each such subsection begins with a short introduction of the writer or with information about the book with brief comments on the story and characters. Then the main issues of the author’s interest are introduced and demonstrated on several examples from the book. These quotations from the books will show the actual relationship between literature and society, since each of the writers of the Angry Young Men Movement somehow reflects what surrounds him and the way he perceives the society. This also offers space for comparison of the main heroes and their attitudes (which certainly reflects the attitudes of the authors themselves in some cases) and finding possible differences or similarities between them. In the subsequent chapter, the emphasis will be placed on what can be called the “legacy” of the Angry Young Men. Here, by the word legacy I mean mainly cultural products that have been inspired by the Angry Young Men and their books, or have something in common with them. Therefore film adaptations of the books (considered to be a part of a specific film stream called “British New Wave”) will be commented on. II. Social background (Great Britain in the Nineteen-Fifties) In order to put the Angry Young Men into context, it is necessary to provide a description of the social background of Great Britain in the Nineteen-Fifties, which is the decade when they emerged on the cultural scene. This chapter will cover certain 6 social issues of the decade rather than historical events. The issues to be discussed are those that appear throughout various reference books and publications devoted both to the culture, history and literature of Britain in the Nineteen-Fifties. They also appear in the writings of the Angry Young Men. These issues are the legacy of the World War II, austerity and recovery from it, class stratification in Britain, the welfare state, affluence, consumer society, status of women, the British Government and its policy both inside and outside Britain and the people’s discontent with it (e.g. so-called Suez fiasco). The decade of the Nineteen-Fifties has been connected with the legacy of World War II worldwide as well as in Great Britain. Not only the second half of the Nineteen- Forties but also the Nineteen-Fifties was a time of recovery from war and a time of war consequences: “Life in these dozen years [i.e. 1945 – 1957] was dominated by the consequences of the war, both negative and positive” as Arthur Marwick puts it in his British Society Since 1945 (18). The warfare legacy certainly influenced British society, its establishment and structure. World War II ended in 1945. “Battered by the war and ten years of filthy food, worn-out clothes and austerity, with grime and drabness rubbed into the pores, the British public was in what GPs call a ‘run-down condition’ ” (Allsop 25). The British nation, the society was devastated by the war. “Many of the conditions of war were indeed to continue until early 1950, with rationing and controls enduring still longer” (Marwick 18). In the first post-war years almost everything was rationed, with basic foodstuffs on ‘coupons’, clothing on ‘clothing coupons’, tinned foods and dried fruits on one kind of ‘points, and chocolate and sweets on another, more popularly known as ‘sweetie coupons’ […] Between July 1946 and July 1948 even bread was rationed. (70) But the Nineteen-Fifties were meant to be a time of recovery in the majority of aspects. This recovery was started already in the second half of the Nineteen-Forties, 7 when “the general election of 1945 […] for the first time ever, gave Labour a decisive victory” (Marwick 7), and the recovery was lead by the Labour Government and continued throughout the following decade under the Government of the Conservative Party, thus sometimes the second half of the Forties and the Fifties are perceived as one era; as the era of renewal of the country and society. Further on, Marwick asserts: “Discussing Labour’s general election victory in 1945, Peter Calvocoressi, in The British Experience 1945-75 , writes of the electorate hoping and believing ‘that the Labour would make great strides towards the elimination of absolute poverty and excessive inequality’ ” (Marwick 8). This was the reason why the Labour Party was elected. The changes started to take place after the war. But there was a shortage of material in many branches of industry, and life in general – and not only in Britain: “With re-building going on everywhere in the world, many materials and foodstuffs were even scarcer than they had been during the war” (Marwick 19). The war had a deadening effect in many ways. Nevertheless, there were even some positive aspects. “The war itself had had an enormous direct influence in stimulating all kinds