Development Of Realism In The Postwar British Academic Novel

This thesis tries to analyze how realism develops in the three representative postwar academicnovels, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury, Small World byDavid Lodge, from the specific writing techniques and genres in these novels.Though realism is under great pressure from modernism and postmodernism in the20thcentury, it does not disappear but combine with other genres or several formal experiments to reacha new level or to form a new mode. This thesis means to find out what the writers in differentdecades have achieved in the process of developing realism.This thesis contains three chapters, besides introduction and conclusion. Chapter One studiesrealism in Lucky Jim. This novel is a representative novel which belongs to the first generation ofpostwar British academic novel in the1950s. Via traditional realism, Amis pictures an ordinarylecturer from lower-middle class, Jim. He is preoccupied with how to make a better living withmeans of every conceivable kind. Jim succeeds in entering the upper class in the end. According tothe analysis, the mode of realism in Lucky Jim is traditional realism.Chapter Two makes a study of realism in The History Man. It is published in1975and itbelongs to the second generation of postwar British academic novel. Even though it is affected byrealism in the1950s, it pays much more attention to combining other genres or modernist elements.Through the combination of realistic art and modernist elements, Bradbury expresses his concernwith moral decay and spiritual desolation. It can be concluded that the mode of realism in TheHistory Man is realism with an inclination to modernism.Chapter Three studies realism in Small World. Lodge, a novelist as well as a critic, makes himnot unrestricted limited to one genre. He prefers to combine postmodernist techniques with realism.In Small World, Lodge applies realism to show the degeneration of the scholars who are chasingafter fame and money. Also he applies postmodernist techniques to show spiritual poverty and theuncertainty of meanings. Again, Lodge develops realism into a new height. It can be concluded thatthe mode of realism in Small World is postmodern realism.The thesis concludes that in the postwar British academic novel, the mode of realism develops from traditional realism to realism with modernist inclination then to postmodern realism. Thedevelopment of realism also implies maturity of the British academic novels.