Key Concepts in Contemporary Literature

Steven Padley

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN:
  9781403946911
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350310315
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

Key Concepts in Contemporary Literature offers a comprehensive overview of the literature and critical debates of the period since 1945. Setting texts in their historical, political and cultural contexts, it demonstrates how literature has dealt with and been shaped by the changing face of the modern world.

1Contexts: History, Politics, Culture

Introduction

At the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945 the public mood in Britain reflected a desire for social change, not least to provide restitution for the sacrifices made by those on the home front as well as those in the armed forces. The British people had felt the effects of war to a severe degree: sustained aerial bombardment had inflicted widespread damage on major cities; men were dispersed to the various theatres of war; women moved out of the domestic sphere to support the war effort on the land, in factories or in the services; and family units were broken up as children were evacuated to safer locations. The privations endured during wartime led to demands that social iniquities and inequalities would be corrected in the future. Planning for a fairer society had begun as early as 1942, with the publication of the Beveridge Report, which advocated the creation of a Welfare State to improve healthcare and education and to alleviate poverty. The report’s recommendations for a National Health Service, national insurance and family allowances were taken up after the Labour Party’s surprising landslide victory in the 1945 general election, ousting Britain’s wartime political leader, Winston Churchill. Initially, there seemed to be grounds for optimism that the necessary social and economic changes would be achieved, but Labour’s promised radicalism failed to materialise: its parliamentary majority was slashed to a mere five seats in 1950, and in the following year the Conservatives returned to power, remaining there until 1964. The change of government did not affect the political commitment to the postwar settlement, however, and up to the late 1970s the major parties shared a belief in the Welfare State as the cornerstone of social policy.

While the consensus about the direction of British society remained relatively unchanged for over three decades after the Second World War, Britain’s international status was more problematic. The economic consequences of war, together with America’s rise as a world power, were major factors in the decline of Britain’s imperial status. The United States had made a vital contribution to the winning of the war, and its prosperity, at a time when ravaged European nations were counting the cost of military conflict, enabled it to offer assistance in postwar reconstruction, through which it could guide the future economic direction of Western Europe to the benefit of American interests. Britain, on the other hand, was conceding its former imperial territories, with Indian independence in 1947 the most notable example. Nevertheless, the extent of Britain’s reduced world role was not fully recognised until 1956, when the government’s attempt to counter Egypt’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal was halted by America’s threat of economic sanctions against the pound. The government’s humiliating climb-down confirmed a shift in the international balance of power that had first become apparent with the beginning of the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. As Russia extended its influence in the 1950s and 1960s, seeking to challenge America’s nuclear dominance, European nations found themselves caught between two antagonistic superpowers, a situation that continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. During the Cold War, nuclear proliferation on both sides fostered anxiety throughout Europe, leading to the establishment of protest movements such as CND (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) in Britain.

On the domestic front, despite the undoubted achievements of the Welfare State, the promise of ‘fairness for all’ was far from being fulfilled by the end of the 1950s. Public confidence in the political establishment, shaken by Suez, was further weakened by defections from the intelligence services, revelations that British officials Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Kim Philby had been spying for the Soviet Union, and sexual scandals involving senior government figures and prostitutes, in the Profumo affair of 1963. In the following year the Conservative government was defeated, and Labour returned to power. For a time, under Harold Wilson’s modernising leadership, Britain recovered its self-confidence, both politically and culturally, but even though it was returned with a larger majority in 1966, the Wilson government’s radical ambitions were hindered by economic crises that culminated in devaluation of the pound in 1967. Although relative stability was restored, the Conservatives, under Edward Heath, won an unexpected election victory in 1970.

The economic downturn that began in the late 1960s intensified throughout the following decade, presenting serious fiscal problems, first to the Heath administration. Industrial action by miners and other key workers resulted in energy shortages, leading to the introduction of a three-day working week in 1973–4 that was the main factor in the downfall of the government. Labour fared little better from 1974 to 1979, under Prime Minister Wilson and his successor James Callaghan, eventually being forced to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund, conditional on spending cuts that proved highly unpopular. Growing industrial unrest in 1979 led to a succession of strikes by public sector workers in the so-called ‘winter of discontent’. Throughout the 1970s governments also faced other internal problems: social and racial tensions in the inner cities; rising poverty and unemployment; an intensification of the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland; and pressures for moves towards devolution in Scotland and Wales. The 1979 general election was, however, a political watershed, with the Conservative victory under Margaret Thatcher heralding a rejection of the political consensus that had remained in place since 1945.

Thatcherism, the doctrine that dominated British politics for the next decade, advocated a shift to a free-market economy, with as little state intervention as possible, and reorganisation of the Welfare State on free-market principles. State control of industries and utilities gave way to privatisation, and the manufacturing sector was no longer to be relied upon as the main provider of jobs and national productivity. Legislation to limit the power of the unions was introduced as a response to the recurrent industrial unrest of the 1970s. The most serious consequence of the change of political direction was a rapid increase in unemployment, which rose to around 3 million by the early 1980s, an unprecedented figure in the postwar era. Public services suffered from under-investment; riots in Bristol, Toxteth, Brixton and Moss Side testified to severe social problems; and manufacturing industries went into decline. For some people, however, the 1980s was a decade of affluence, with large amounts of money to be made from privatisation of national utilities and in the City. The Conservatives maintained a stranglehold on political power, increasing their majority in the 1983 election, on a wave of jingoistic feeling engendered by the emphatic defeat of Argentinean forces one year earlier, and retaining control comfortably in 1987. By the end of the 1980s the political landscape had changed irrevocably, forcing the political Left to rethink its core values. The Labour Party, after much bloodletting, began to present a more cohesive alternative, and Thatcher’s abrasive style began to lose its appeal even within her own party, while new measures such as the community charge (or ‘poll tax’) provoked organised public protest and opposition. However, it was her refusal to countenance closer political and economic union with Europe that eventually brought about her downfall in 1990, when she resigned after narrowly surviving the first round of a leadership challenge.

John Major replaced Thatcher, and though he fought off Labour’s challenge in the 1992 election, divisions over Europe and economic difficulties continued to pose serious problems for the Conservatives. A series of political and sexual scandals brought into question the probity of ministers and MPs. At the same time, the process of change within the Labour Party was accelerating under the leadership of Tony Blair, who built on the modernising work of his predecessors, Neil Kinnock and John Smith. The party under Blair moved closer to the centre-ground of British politics, establishing closer ties with business, and distancing itself from its historical alliance with the trade unions. The Labour landslide victory in the 1997 election was widely expected, though the scale of the Conservatives’ defeat – their worst in electoral history – surprised many, even ‘New Labour’, as it now called itself.

British politics had undergone a huge transformation by the end of the twentieth century. Like Margaret Thatcher, Blair imposed his personal stamp on government, with a style of leadership close to the American ‘presidential’ model. What was also different about this Labour administration, compared to its postwar predecessors, was the retention of free-market principles. Those who hoped for a return to the ideals of the postwar consensus were to be disappointed, though there was an increased commitment to improving health and educational provision. Blair’s government also benefited from greater economic stability than previous Labour administrations had enjoyed, and although change for the better had not been as noticeable as many had hoped, Labour was in a strong position to repeat the landslide of 1997. This was duly achieved in 2001, only months before the attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September changed international and domestic politics as profoundly as had the Second World War. In the reprisals that followed, and particularly in the war with Iraq that began in 2003, Britain was America’s staunchest ally; in the aftermath of ‘9/11’ Britain’s international status was more dependent than ever on its relationship with the United States. The Iraq war proved to be an issue of lasting significance, with mass demonstrations against the government’s support for American action and British military involvement in the conflict. Arguments about the legality of the war dominated British politics in the early years of the 21st century, and the extent of public opposition to the war was reflected in the substantial reduction of Labour’s majority in the 2005 general election, which brought the party its third consecutive victory.

Shortly after Labour began its historic third term – the first time the party had won three elections in a row – Britain became a target for international terrorism. On 7 July 2005, 52 people were killed in a series of suicide bomb attacks on the London transport system. The bombers, who were linked to the Muslim fundamentalist group al-Qaeda, and widely believed to be acting in response to Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war, targeted three underground trains and a London bus. The perpetrators of a failed second attack two weeks later were arrested, but public anxiety about the events of July 2005 was heightened by the knowledge that some of the bombers involved in both attempts were British Asians, indicating the reach of fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda.

The major events and developments since 1945 outlined above – the fall of the British Empire; the rise of American influence; and the impact of the Cold War – give a sense of the changing postwar world, but within Britain other significant changes – social and cultural – took place, affecting racial, class and gender identities in particular. The period that witnessed the decline of Britain’s imperial status was also characterised by an internal shift towards multiculturalism. Postwar national reconstruction required a large labour force, and to provide this Britain looked towards its empire, leading to an influx of immigrants from the Caribbean, India and Pakistan in the 1950s and 1960s. Many of these arrived with the expectation of a positive reception from the ‘mother country’, but were often met with hostility and racial prejudice that sometimes spilled over into violence. There were periodic calls for tighter immigration controls, and far-right political groups exploited and fostered racism, gaining worrying levels of support in some socially and economically deprived areas of Britain around the turn of the 21st century. On a more positive note, however, and notwithstanding the growing problem of militant religious fundamentalism and its impact on ethnically diverse communities, there are encouraging signs that Britain is making the transition towards a genuinely multicultural society, more diverse and tolerant than was the case some 50 years earlier, with younger, British-born blacks and Asians acquiring a more confident and assertive sense of identity, and making a huge contribution to British cultural life.

The process of social change since 1945 has also seen alterations in class structure, a consequence of the egalitarian spirit that replaced the more rigid prewar culture of deference in British society. As Britain moved from austerity towards affluence in the 1950s and 1960s, and the extension of the educational franchise brought a wider cross-section of society into higher education and the professions, entrenched notions of class status began to erode. The sense of egalitarianism was perhaps at its height from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. A retrenchment, however, took place in the 1980s, with rising unemployment, particularly in traditional working-class communities, having a negative effect on the aspirations of those affected. Although politicians at various times since the end of the Second World War have deemed class as no longer relevant, the continuing gap between rich and poor, and the diminishment of opportunity for many, after the widening of access in the earlier postwar period, should temper an over-optimistic belief in the loosening of social hierarchies, notwithstanding the general trend towards democratisation in Britain.

A third area in which substantial change has taken place, though again one that needs to be treated with caution, relates to the role and status of women. Many women had played vital roles in the production of wartime essentials, and although they were initially encouraged to return to the domestic sphere, to enable men to take up their traditional roles in the workplace, women were soon being actively recruited back into the labour force. The postwar ‘baby boom’, the need to meet the demands of the massive reconstruction programme required to rebuild British society, and the birth of the modern consumer age were the main reasons for the increase in employment opportunities for women. At the same time, expansion in higher education meant that more female students were able to go to university, widening their career horizons and boosting their economic power and independence.

However, the extent to which positive changes were happening for women was tempered by their continued marginalisation in the public sphere, by the obstacles they still faced in achieving parity with male work colleagues, and by the competing demands of career and family. The alternative ideologies of counter-cultural movements that were beginning to emerge in the 1960s also seemed to have little to say about female experience, forcing women to look elsewhere for a means of defining themselves in postwar society. The rebirth of feminism in the late 1960s answered this need. Much of modern feminism’s initial impetus came from France and the United States, but by the early 1970s the women’s movement in Britain was firmly established, and the social and cultural impact of feminism became quickly apparent as it challenged conventional perceptions of gender roles, and helped women to fulfil their personal and professional potential.

Other factors contributed to the change in women’s position in society, not least the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1961, though initially only available to married women. Not only was the ‘pill’ seen as empowering for women; it also played a role in facilitating what has been described as a sexual revolution in the 1960s, a period which was also characterised by liberalising reforms, such as the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the legalising of abortion, both in 1967. Typical of the trend towards greater social and cultural freedom in the 1960s were challenges to and changes in the state’s role as an instrument of censorship. The ‘Lady Chatterley’ trial of 1960, in which Penguin Books successfully defended a charge of obscenity for publishing a paperback edition of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was seen as a defining moment in the change of attitudes to sex and sexuality. A further blow to state censorship was struck by the termination of the Lord Chamberlain’s role as censor of stage productions in Britain in 1968, which allowed greater freedom to playwrights and directors to address previously taboo themes and issues.

The 1960s also saw the birth of a counter-cultural ethos in Western Europe and the United States that gave free rein to physical, sensual and intellectual expression and drew on new ideas in psychology, philosophy, sociology, music, literature and art, in opposition to ‘official’ politics, social attitudes and moral values. This mood was perhaps most clearly demonstrated in Paris in 1968, when student protests demanding educational reforms escalated into an alliance with French workers that paralysed the capital. The revolutionary spirit of May ’68 became an enduring influence on anti-establishment thought and action, with student protests closing the London School of Economics briefly in 1969. American intervention in Vietnam, precipitating a war that lasted from 1964 to 1973, was also a major force for dissent, and led to the formation of protest groups in Britain, as elsewhere in Europe and America. In all such cases, the young were at the forefront of oppositional and counter-cultural movements, an indication of another significant postwar trend: the assumption among young people of a discrete sense of identity, with their own fashions, music and cultural references. Increased affluence gave the young substantial spending power, and in Britain factors such as the abolition of National Service, educational expansion and the growth of the Welfare State also contributed to the rise in significance of youth culture. From 1950s ‘teddy boys’, through the mods and rockers of the early 1960s, the hippy movement of the later 1960s, skinheads and punks in the 1970s, and rave culture in the 1990s, a sense of tribalism characterised British youth culture throughout the period, though the growth of global consumerism and commercialisation seems to have brought about a homogenisation of youth identity, as in other sections of society, towards the end of the century.

Although in many respects British society has not entirely rid itself of the inequalities that the Welfare State was set up to eradicate in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, and notwithstanding the caveats expressed above, there is evidence in the advances made in women’s roles, the beneficial effects of multiculturalism, the existence of greater social mobility and the improvements in living standards for many, to characterise the period as a whole as one of democratisation, nowhere more clearly reflected in changes in literary culture, which will be demonstrated in subsequent chapters of this book.

Further reading

Ford, Boris (ed.), The Cambridge Cultural History of Britain, vol. 9: Modern Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Marwick, Arthur, British Society since 1945, 3rd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).

Morgan, Kenneth O., Britain since 1945: The People’s Peace, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

British Empire, decline and loss

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• General Editors’ Preface
• General Introduction
• 1 Contexts: History, Politics, Culture
• 2 Texts: Themes, Issues, Concepts
• 3 Criticism: Approaches, Theory, Practice
• Notes
• Chronology
• General Index
• Index of Works Cited