Literalisation of Class Antagonism: The Dichotomy of them and us in Alan Sillitoe Fiction

摘要

The aim of this study is to propose a Marxist reading of Sillitoe fiction, particularly Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958), Key to the Door (1961) and he Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner?(1959), and to elucidate the metaphors of mental and physical rebellion against the Establishment through the dichotomy of them and us. Over the course of the study, the domestic, cultural, social and political tendencies of the characters will be reinterpreted with an attempt to critically lay out Sillitoe authentic portrayal of the socio-historical reality of class consciousness and his fiction emergence as part of the particular and complex historical circumstances pertaining in the UK during the 1950s. His literary works will be approached in conjunction with other key texts that engage with history and class consciousness, including Richard Hoggart The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working- Class Life (first published in1957). In this way, the atomizing and victimizing influences of industrial capitalism in historical actuality will also be investigated through the examination of the ways in which Sillitoe mediates the subjective experiences of the working-class characters in his fiction.