A Warning To The English

Julian Barnes, one of the most prestigious British contemporary novelists, has received wide attention from the world literary critics for his innovative experiments in his exploration of serious issues of history, art, and death. In the last decades of the 20th century, national identity and cultural heritage has become heated topics in the English society, and many writers contributed to the exploration of Englishness. Julian Barnes, however, queried the way that the English pursued the representation of the "Englishness" for relieving themselves from identity anxieties.Barnes'England, England (1998), interweaves the protagonist's pursuit of her authentic identity with the transformation of English society, reveals the contradiction between individual cultural request and contemporary cultural orientation, and makes a deconstructive interpretation of the cultural heritage and the Englishness. By exposing the threats of the commercialization under consumerism to heritage and criticizing the escapism in the nostalgic fervour, Barnes demonstrates that the maltreatment of cultural heritage and the mere revival of old practices are not to reconstruct the cultural identity of the English or to relieve the identity anxiety of the individuals, but to harm the national culture itself and reinforce the inner predicament of the individuals.With the guidance of Cultural Memory theories and based on the detailed textual analysis, this thesis discusses how Barnes mocks the seeming cultural prosperity, the maltreatment of cultural heritage and the mere revival of old practices, how the novel depicts those English who indulge in past glories, self-admiration and identity anxieties, and what the readers should do to grasp the essence of cultural memory and to reconsider the relationship between the English heritage and cultural identity.On the basis of the above analysis, the thesis comes to its conclusion. England, England is a truthful presentation of the cultural crisis of England and the inner predicament of the English. It is not only an earnest warning to the unrealistically optimistic English in the last decades of the 20th century, but also a helpful guide to the contemporary people in their maintenance of national culture and enrichment of the individual inner needs.