From Rebellion To Resignation

The Angry Young Men, an important western literary form, has jumped to spotlight in Britain in the 1950s. Its advent helps fill the then low tide of the literature with energy. It is known that in literature modernism flourished in English literature for over 30 years, however, the writers of 1950s have taken place of modernism, which altered the traditions and practices of prewar British writing. It is the writers and their writings of 1950s who reflected the British society after the World War II, revealing the pursuit and way of life of the young after the World War II, presenting us with the vivid picture of the British society and the vicissitude of the times.On the basis of the review of current studies concerning the Angry Young Men, the thesis provides an overall study of the Angry Young Men on the base of analysis of the masterpiece of the Angry Young Men writers, Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, John Osborne's Look Back In Anger and Philip Larkin's poetry, including the Angry Young Men's background, from rebellion to resignation, a survey of the philosophical and aesthetic source and literary characteristics.The thesis is divided into five parts. The first part mainly discusses the background of the Angry Young Men. The key issue of the social background is the influence of World War II on the social and cultural climate of Britain. After World War II, the Britain was greatly destroyed by the war with stagnant economy, penurious material, hard lives, sharp class conflict, at the same time, the independence of colonial and semi-colonial countries became hot, the British Empire lost its position in the world, which made the feeling of anger crept in the British mind, especially in the mind of the young. All of this pave the way for the development of realism. In the literary background, the development of English literature in the 20th century is analyzed, based on the David Lodge's Pendulum Theory of alternate appearance between modernism and anti-modernism, we know that the literature of 1950s is the product of the Pendulum Theory when the pendulum swayed back to the 1950s. Next section is the literary review. The literary review provides a picture of the current research on the Angry Yong Men, which helps establish the proper foundation and standpoint of my study.The second part centers on an overall study of the Angry Young Men, which covers the real reasons, the way to rebellion, looking for identity and limitations and resignation.The third part is devoted to a survey of the philosophical and aesthetic source of the Angry Young Men. The aim of the survey is modern Existentialism. The fourth part is a characteristic analysis based on the textual analysis of works. By doing so, the thesis tries to discover the characterization of anti-hero and the new perspective of the themeThe fifth part is the conclusion of the thesis. Based on the survey above, the thesis draws the following conclusion that under the certain milieu of the 1950s, the emergence and the development of the Angry Young Men and the philosophical and aesthetical view they held is the product of British society, and the outcome of the rules of the development of English literature.