The canon of the Angry Young Men writers (John Osborne, Kingsley Amis, John Wain, John Braine). The rising of the middle class and the reflecting of its problems in literature

Lecture 2

Angry young men — a new trend in English literature appeared in the fifties of the XX century as a result of disillusionment in post-war bourgeois reality. The writers of the trend criticize contemporary society, but do not show the way out of the impasse.

They were not "angry" 'in the strict sense of the word, they were not all young and not all men either (Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch are women), but all the members of the group shared a strong fresh viewpoint which had made them unquestionably a new and interesting literary phenomenon of the post-war years. These writers of the fifties, judging by their works and their manner of writing are widely different. At the same time these writers have also much in common. They all belong to the young writers who came into literature after World War II. In different ways and in many voices the younger generation of writers, critics, poets and intelligentsia in the age group of roughly 25 to 35 had been expressing irritation at the scene around them. With the production and immense success of J. Osborne's Look Back in Anger which was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1956, they found a symbol of their dissatisfaction. The term derived from the play itself — "Angry Young Men" has by now passed into the language. The theatre was an important forum for the "angry young men" and for their more radical contemporaries. Harold Pinter (b.1930) with his works The Caretaker, the Homecoming, No Man's Land, and other dramatist of the time associated with the Theatre of the Absurd abandoned realism, plot and characterization in order to communicate a sense of emptiness and absurdity of modern existence.

The best known writers of the groupare the novelists Kingsley Amis, John Wain and John Braine, Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch, and playwright John Osborne.

All these writers pictured the life of young people dissatisfied with something in their surrounding life. Their works are full of irritation and confusion caused, on the one hand, by the bourgeois way of life and on the other, by their lack of purpose.

There were some concrete social factors which called forth the general discontent among the post-war younger generation. When World War II came to an end, many people in the Western countries expected democratic reforms. This expectation was especially strong in England where the Labour Party promised a free and prosperous life to millions of common people. Therefore many people supported the Labour Party which was going to carry out a social revolution. Years passed, however, and nothing changed for the better. Politicians are marvels of energy and principle when they are out of office, but when, they are in they simply run behind the machine. As soon as the British Labourists came to power they forgot to abide by their commitments. These social factors also determined the peculiarities of literary works by the young writers of the fifties.

The young people of the 50s can rightly be called “second lost generation”. The two generations lived in the alike time and conditions - the war and post-war time. They both lost their previous beliefs in the governments who promised them better life, they were disillusioned and disappointed, they did not enjoy real democracy and their bitterness and anger was endless.

But there is a great difference between the two generations. Lost generation actively fought for better life in the trenches of World War I, while angry young men were passive. They did not take part in the war; they were young people fresh from red-brick universities with the diplomas in their pockets. They could not use their knowledge. They spoke much about faithfulness but they were not devoted to their friends and beloved. Their disillusion concerns primarily their conditions and unsettledness. Daily routine sharpened their realization of being useless in the society - on which they laid their hopes. They cried out their hearts and souls undertaking no steps to make the life better. Angry young men declared that they were not only “lost” but also "betrayed" and directed their bitter abuses at everybody and everything.

They belong to the English postwar generation which has not found its place in life. They did not, however, have any noble cause in the name of which they would be ready to fight.

In general, the heroes of the "angry young men" writers are young: men who came from the lower quarters to upper decent society by either getting education or by marrying a girl from a rich family. The society was strange and hostile to the young men. Some of them fought tooth and nail against representatives of the upper class, others returned to their own folk. Many of them, in case they returned to their own class_, loathed the idea of suffering disabilities in all aspects of life. All these people had one common feeling - the aversion to the Establishment.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11