The hero beyond the myth: The new heroes of post World War II British literature
Abstract
Previous attempts to classify the works of British writers in the ten-year period after World War II have resulted in the naming of two inaccurate and inadequate literary movements (i.e. the Movement and the Angry Young Men) about which much has been written. Still, no satisfactory criteria has been established for categorizing these works beyond these so-called movements and other groupings based upon literary traditions (i.e. the picaresque, the working-class novel). Drawing on Jean Baudrillard's succession of representation, I propose a system of classification based on the text's construction of reality and reader response. I designate three hero types—the Prophet, Celebrity, and Philosophical hero—that emerge within this period. Each hero type has a unique function determined by a text's verisimilitude and at the same time illustrates a response to the postwar period, literary tradition, and philosophy of the time period. These groupings incorporate such disparate works as Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, and Iris Murdoch's Under the Net. They also create a dialogue for critics and students to explore how the construction of Reality (e.g. as a means to reflect, mask, parody, or reveal the absence of reality) and readers from different time periods and culture determine the relationship between heroes and their spatiotemporal and cultural moments.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Palmer, Purdue University.
Subject Area
British and Irish literature
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