ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF MODERNITY: THREE GENERATIONS OF WORKING-CLASS FICTION (LAWRENCE, GREENWOOD, SILLITOE), 1910-1960 MATTHEW GAUGHAN PhD THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND RELATED LITERATURE MAY 2007 In memory of Herbert Peter Kirkham, grandfather and chemist iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements v Declaration vi Abstract vii Abbreviations ix INTRODUCTION I CHAPTER ONE The Forging of a Working-Class Tradition in D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers 14 1. Historical Contexts 1. Iniroduction 18 2. D. H. Lawrence'sInditshialMidlands 23 3. Edwardian England 30 4.1 Education 35 -airrence's H. The Development of Lawrence's Fiction 1.A BiograpbicalNarralire 38 2. FourMbibi, Sloties,1912 42 ,g 3. Vii1big Somaid Lvrers 48 111."The Colliery Novel" 1. CriticalReadings 54 2. ThePbjsique of Class 59 3. TheIndustrial TForkscape 68 4. ThePlatiq of Irlomen 76 5. Conclusion 83 CHAPTERTWO Palatable Socialism or the "Real Thing"? Walter Greenwood's Love On the Dole 86 1. Historical Contcxts 1. Introduction 87 2. Contemporaries&Predecessors 95 3.1930s Fiitiii 102 ,g IV 4. Mancbester6- Safford:A Btief Oveniew 109 5. ThePolitical Context 112 11. The Novel 1. ReconsinictinTSafford 122 (a) Gambliiý 123 ,g (b) Goff,ýhj 128 ,g (c)Etbititi-O 130 2. Politics:'Apalby, dodAy,deference" 136 3. TheAtilbentidy of Laii guage 145 . , 4. Froz),Novel to Film 150 CHAPTER THREE The Creation of a New Working-Class Mythology in Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning 157 1. Historical Contexts: "The TranquIlized Fifties" 1. Bfifisb Likrature 161 2. From,'Tbe People'sVar" fo theAffluent 1950s 166 3. TeenageOdium 172 4. Vomm hi The1950s 175 5. TheEid of E,,*ire 178 11. Depoliticizcd Working-Class Anger 1. TheAtltbentidýy of Class 185 2. ThePolitics ofAffluence 193 3. Militag andSocial Coiýflids 202 4. TheAutbenlitiy of Laii guage 210 , 5. FromNovel to Fibw 214 CONCLUSION 223 AFTERWORD On BorderCounig by Raymond WiHiams 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY 244 V ACK NOWLEDGEMENTS With the deepestgratitude, 1 thank my supervisor Geoff WaH for his support, guidance, and encouragementthroughout the writing of this thesis. It is also with great appreciation that I thank Mary Luck-hurst for her advice and assistanceat critical junctures of the thesis. I thank the Department of English and Related Uterature at the University of York in their help towards my academicprogress through their financial support for my attendanceat conferencesand, with Lawrence Rainey, through the opportunity to work at ModendslvlModendy. I thank all my friends for their presence,encouragement, and intellectual input, especiallyJulian Hanna and Ingunn Eriksen. And most of all I thank my family for their constant support and love. vi DECLARAT10N I declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted in any form for another degree or diploma at any university or other institution of tertiary education. Information derived from the published or unpublished work of others has been acknowledgedin the text and a list of referencesis given. vii ABSTRACT In my thesis,1 examine the development of working-class fiction in the twentieth century. I trace the development from D. H. Lawrence, in a period of gradually increasing linguistic and political working-class enfranchisement, through Walter Greenwood, in a period of industrial depression,to the popular successof Alan Sillitoe, in a period of great economic freedom. My thesis explores the ambiguities of the twentieth-century project of English working-class fiction and challengesreceived versions of working-class identity and of working-class writing. Across a fifty year history, I ask a wide range of theoretical questions. I look at the subject of enfranchisement,both linguistic and political. I reassessthe significance of so-called regionalism, in the context of a dominant metropolitan modernity. I argue that working-class writing was an alternative to modernism rather than a residual cultural form. 1 disentangle the issue of authenticity from the variously prevailing progressivist definitions and trace the evolution of local classidentities under the pressureof an increasingly nationalized culture. I describe and analysethe complex play of local, regional, and metropolitan-national. affiliations as they are played out in three successivegenerations of writers in the regional-metropolitan arenasof Edwardian and postwar Nottingham and interwar Salford. 1 conclude the thesis by arguing that working-class fiction has developed from the tense introspection of the early Lawrence to the aggressiveconfidence of Sillitoe. This viii literary development runs alongside increasedeconomic prosperity and political representation.'Ilie development is acted out in terms of introspective conflict - political, regional, sexual,literary, and in relation to class.Finally, the emergenceof film as a popular medium enabled greater artistic and commercial representation of working-class communities. I finish by concluding that the advanceof working-class fiction from Lawrence to Sillitoe helped lead to the pre-eminence of working-class culture in the 1960s. ix ABBREVIATIONS Prima! ý: Sources S&L D. H. Lawrence, SonsandLovers (Cambridge, 1992) LD Walter Greenwood, Loveon theDole (Flamingo, 1993) SN Alan Silfitoe, SaturdajNz, SundajMoming (Flamingo, ,& and 1994) TSL David Storey, This SportingLife (Vintage, 2000) RT John Braine, Roomat TheTop (Arrow Books, 2002) Seconda!:y Sources CCE Roger Moore, Comwiuni_oand Coiygiclin EastivooJA Shtýv From TheNottin gbavvsbire CoaýfteldBefore 1914 (Nottingham, 1995) , CS Robert Roberts, TheClassic Shivi: SaffordLife in TheFirst offhe Centug (Penguin, 1971) _Quader DNB Dictionag of National Biqgraply ( httl?:/ /N-,-v, -, v. oxfordd nhxomý) Ej J. B. Priestley, Englisbjounig (Heinemann, 1934) Ey John Worthen, D. H. Lawrence.,The EarjI Years1885-1912 (Cambridge, 1991) M Alan Kidd, Alancbester(Edinburgh, 2003) RL Stuart Laing, Re of II'lorking-ClassLife 1957-1964 (TVIacmillan,1986) 'presentations INTRODUCTION "Unlike the pseudosI am of- notfor- the working class"' In one of his many complex discussionsof his relationsl-ýpwith the urban Scottish working class,Scottish poet and Communist Party member Hugh MacDiarrnid highlights the complexities, expectations,and contradictions that a writer from a working-class background faced throughout the twentieth century. In the expectation that the writer would represent his class,a regional and political authenticity was demanded in a manner not expected of writers from a middle- or upper-classback-ground. Through a Marxist classconsciousness, he was furthermore expected to present the concerns of the working classto an influential literary 61ite,be fired by an angry classresentment, and in some cases"adhere to the current strategy of the Communist Party.))2 However, tl-ýsdemand for authenticity created a contradiction, for any authentic account was forced to emphasizeworking-class political conservatism.This was then further complicated by the literary aims of the writer, often personal and individual, concerned more with literary tradition than political representation.The novels I study in this thesis are notfor the working classin any ideological way; rather they are of importance becausethe writers I Hugh MacDiarmid,"Third Hymn to Lenin," in CompletePoevir 1920-1976. Volifive II, eds.Michael Grieve and W. R. Aitken (London:Nfartin Brian & O'Keefe, 1978),900. 2Andy Croft, RedLetterDajr., Brilisb Fiction in Ike 1930s(London: Lawrence & Wishart,1990), 63. 2 and the fiction are of the working class.They give voice to working-class culture, but that Eterary and cultural voice is fluid and defiberatelyinconsistent. The fiction adds to and endorsesworking-class mythologies, whilst at the sametime challenging and subvcrfing them. In this thesis, I look at three moments and three different perceptions of classin twentieth-century history. These perceptions are fictional interpretations of class,which form part of a wider temporal definition of the Enghsh working class.The first moment is at the Edwardian turn into mechanized modernity, coinciding with a prolonged period of gradual political, economic, and linguistic classemancipation. D. H. Lawrence's Solis andLovers (1913) explores the conflicts and contradictions between individual, class,and mass consciousness,between social mobility and regional immobility, and between the English rural tradition and the onset of industrialized modernity. The tensions of modernity are echoed in the classtensions that causethe intellectual confusion of the artistic hero, Paul Nforel. Lawrence's alternative to modernity is to emphasizethe rural tradition and to focus on the emancipation of the working class,but this alternative is constrained by the myths of working-class culture which are necessaryto secureworking- classidentity but which Emit a social and intellectual mobility. Lawrence's achievementin Sonsand Lovers is to present the culture of his -,Vorking-class community to a metropolitan audiencein a persuasivelyrealist manner. By emphasizing the fluidity and complexity of his community, he underscoresthe difficulty individual consciousnesshas in conforming to and rejecting the shared myths and concepts which forge perceptions of working-class communities. This achievement enabled future working-class writers to portray their classin complex ways which challengeperceived ideas of classand community. The second moment occurs at the international economic crisis of the early 1930s, when interest in the working classwas at a high, particularly among