Library Dissertation Showcase

“I don’t want to be a mother. I don’t want to be a woman.”: The Presentation of Working-Class Women in British Literature of the 1950’s and 1960’s

  • Year of Publication:
  • 2022

That Britain and its literature was and continues to be concerned with and influenced by class and gender throughout the twentieth century is a well acknowledged observation. The accelerated cultural change experienced in the latter half of the century facilitated new waves of widespread change in both literature and society alike, unsettling and shifting perceptions of class and gender as well as the attached concepts of sexuality, work, domesticity and conflict. This dissertation addresses the intersection of class and gender in the 1950’s and 1960’s through examining the presentations of working-class women in literature of the period. Throughout my study I interrogate ideals of masculinity and femininity in their attachment to class-based identities and the subsequent usurping of traditional boundaries in the face of societal change. Historical, political and social changes are read in the literature I address as significant personal and cultural events that signify the unique relationship between gender and class that has existed in Britain and therefore in its literature as a space for the exploration of cultural anxieties. Many of the texts addressed in this study can be viewed as exemplifying literary anger – a significant research point in my study as I address the masculine glorification of the infamous ‘Angry Young Man’ authors and characters, yet also interrogate the introduction and politicisation of working-class women’s anger in literature of the late 1950’s. My questioning of the established roles of working-class women in the period, notably situated within ‘the domestic’, runs throughout my arguments and is key to my conclusion that female working-class characters must be understood within their contexts as representations of real political and social issues. My research spans novels, poetry and plays and locates in all of the texts addressed a need for the voices of working-class women, within the period and beyond, to be articulated with empathy, most clearly realised in the importance of working-class female writers such as Shelagh Delaney.

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