210

THE RETURN OF THE ANTI-HERO

English Literature from

the 1950s onwards

A very definite new trend in English Literature, in novels and especially in plays , began to emerge
from the 1950s onwards. This was the return of the “anti-hero”, and was to become the dominant
feature of writing through the 1950s to the 1970s.

In order to examine exactly what an “Anti-Hero” is, it is necessary to look back on what had gone
before.

The Hero in World Literature

The literature of all countries at all times has always told stories of heroes and their heroic deeds.
These heroes have represented the people they lead, and have taken part in historical events, epic
journeys and wars. There are stories of real, historical heroes, who have actually lived and there are
tales of mythical heroes, often used as symbols. There are several fictional heroes who came to
prominence in the ballads, poems and later novels of more modern times.
All these heroes have had certain features in common, including the following:

• The hero does some great deed of physical strength and great courage
• The hero overcomes great difficulties and saves people’s lives
• Often the heroic deed is a one-time event, after which the hero returns to a normal life.

The first hero was probably named after the Greek Goddess, Hera. It was Heracles who lived, acted
and died doing glorious deeds in the name of the goddess, and for the glory of the Greek Nation.
Later heroes were mythical men like Jason and his fight against the Argonauts.

The Old Testament of the Bible is full of heroes whose deeds serve to illustrate the glory of the
Israelites: the strength of Samson, the skill of David in killing the giant Goliath are examples. By
the time of the New Testament, the heroic deeds of Jesus do not come from his physical strength.
Jesus is a hero because of his miracles and his more spiritual deeds.

The Hero in English Literature

The Earliest Heroes

The earliest heroes in English Literature come from
the Middle Ages and include Sir Gawain and his
battle with the Green Knight; Robin Hood and his
fight against the wicked Sherriff of Nottingham who
was taxing the peasants; and King Arthur and his
noblemen of the Round Table.
Gradually in the years between these different
writings, the nature of the hero has been changing
from simple strength in battle to nobility of character.
All these national heroes possessed the main
characteristics of heroism:
The Statue of Robin Hood at Nottingham Castle
 211

• they performed outstanding deeds;

• they risked their very lives for the sake of others rather than for their own glory;
• They were all victims themselves.
• They were all men.

The 18th & 19th Centuries

Just prior to the Romantic Age writers like Henry Fielding, Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe wrote
early novels featuring “heroes” who were not quite in the same style as the classic heroes of old.
Some of their heroes – Tom Jones, for example - were not as noble and brave in their deeds as the
Classical hero. They did their good deeds more by accident than intent. They were meant to be
comic symbols or a satire on certain aspects of 18th Century society
Many of the Romantic writers of the 19th Century looked back to elements of the heroic myth. A
new kind of hero emerged in the writings of Lord Byron. Through his life and his work, his great
fame and his early death, Lord Byron became the Romantic “superstar” of the age. His appearance,
his personality and his ideas were all used to form the idea of the “Byronic hero”. The most
important of these show the “Byronic hero” as

• Tall, dark and handsome

• Some kind of romantic flaw (like his deformed foot)
• Adventurous
• Passionate for freedom
• Disobeying all the “normal” rules about social behaviour
• A very unconventional love life
• Poetic love for nature
• A gloomy or melancholy side to his emotions
• Likely to die young
• A passionate supporter of ordinary, poor people
• “Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

However, along with Byron, women writers began to emerge: The Brontës, Jane Austen, George
Eliot. As a result, in literature, both men and women could be portrayed as “heroes”.

The Anti-Hero is nothing new?

It is possible to argue that the “anti-hero” is nothing new. In the 16th Century, Marlowe’s “Dr
Faustus” and Shakespeare’s “Richard III” could be described as “anti-heros”, as could Becky Sharpe
in Thackeray’s 19th Century “Vanity Fair”, and many of the leading characters in early 20th Century
novels. However, these “anti-heros” would always pay the price for their misdeeds. It was a basic
rule of society, and also of literary correctness, that anyone guilty of unacceptable social behaviour
must, in the end, be punished. ( See Thackeray—Pages 32-33)

“Protagonist” or “Hero”?
In modern literary criticism the word “protagonist” was often used to replace the word “hero” –
because there had been a change in the nature of the leading character. The “protagonist” was now
much more complex. A lot of Victorian literature portrayed brave heroes fighting to create the
British Empire, and hundreds of novels were published about wars in foreign countries.

However, it was the more complicated protagonists who survived the passing of time. The Pip and
Nicholas Nickleby of Dickens; the Maggie of George Eliot; the Tess of Thomas Hardy. As the 20th
Century dawned, with writers like Henry James and Joseph Conrad, the hero, or protagonist was now
a psychologically much more complex character.
 212

The Emergence of the Anti-Hero in the 1950s

In the 1950s, a new genre of literature appeared, where the “protagonist” is the opposite of the hero;
in fact, he is called the “anti-hero.” Some key works of this kind to be considered below are:

• “Lucky Jim” (1954) – a novel by Kingsley Amis

• “Look Back in Anger” (1956) – a play by John Osborne
• “Room at the Top” (1956) – a novel by John Braine
• “The Entertainer” (1957) – a play by John Osborne

There were two major non-literary causes which influenced the appearance of the “anti-hero”
literature of the 1950s. These were:

• The Suez Canal Crisis (1956)

• The “Angry Young Man” Movement_

The Suez Canal Crisis

In 1956 everything changed in Britain. The Egyptians decided to take over the Suez Canal. It was in
their country, it was important to their economy and they were angry that the British and French were
jointly claiming all the income. Egyptian soldiers moved in and took control.
Britain immediately did a secret deal with Israel and France, and a joint army invaded Egypt. Britain,
said the British Government, is a great world power, and cannot possibly allow a little country like
Egypt to get away with such an insult.
The rest of the world was shocked at this invasion of a sovereign country. The United Nations
ordered Britain to leave Egypt. Britain refused. The Americans immediately withdrew all financial
support from Britain (still suffering from the costs of World War 2). The economy in Britain
collapsed. Britain was forced to give in and leave Egypt.
This was a great psychological blow to Britain. The British Empire was no longer a world power.
The country could be told what to do by America. Britain was a poor country without any power. It
was disastrous for politics, disastrous for Britain, and disastrous for Britain’s image in the world.

The “Angry Young Man” Movement

In 1954, Kingsley Amis published “Lucky Jim”,
a novel that gave new life to the tradition of the
English comic novel. The “hero”, Jim Dixon,
was a young teacher as a small University. His
life was made comically difficult because of the
society around him – old-fashioned, class-
conscious, boring, very “stiff-upper-lip” English
society. He wanted his life to change, and he
wanted society to get modern and up-to-date, but
everything was stuck in the old fashioned way.
This was a novel about a young intellectual who
was badly behaved, broke the rules of Society, and
generally did not conform to the accepted
standards of behaviour. Jim Dixon – Lucky Jim -
was amongst the first of the modern “anti-heroes”.

The actor Ian Carmichael in the famous drunk

episode from the film version of “Lucky Jim”
 213

In 1956 the playwright, John Osborne, wrote “Look Back in

Anger”. Its protagonist, Jimmy Porter, was as “anti-hero” in the
same way as Lucky Jim. But this was not a comic attack on
English society like the novel, This was an angry and bitter attack
on the whole British way of life.

Jimmy Porter lacks all the typical heroic features:

• he is neither strong nor brave;

• he is completely self-centred;
• he fights for his own sake, certainly not for others.
• He is not a brave young man, he is an “angry young man”

The play had enormous success. The phrase “angry young man”
came to represent a whole new generation of English writers –
novelists and playwrights. They were angry about old-fashioned,
class-conscious society. They were angry about the way Britain
was governed. They were angry about Society.

John Osborne’s next play was called “The Entertainer” (1957). The “hero” was Archie Rice – an
old music-hall comedian. The action took place in an old theatre which was falling apart. The
audience was getting smaller and smaller. Archie Rice’s jokes were old and not funny. His life was
falling apart. He was “brave and heroic” because, in spite of everything collapsing around him, he
carried on telling his jokes and performing – but he was an “anti-hero” because it was all a waste of
time. (The decaying theatre was a symbol of Britain itself - once elegant, once full of glamour and
laughter and fun, but now with a smaller than ever audience, losing money and falling apart.)

The same depressed atmosphere appears in John Braine’s novel “Room at the Top” (1957). This is
about a working-class “hero” called Joe Lampton. He is an inferior character, sarcastic and cynical.
He says he represents “life as it is” and he achieves his success through lying, cheating and going to
bed with the bosses’ daughter.

The Anti-Hero soon becomes a Villain

From these inferior, sarcastic and cynical “anti-heroes” , it is just a short step to being a complete
villain. Gradually this kind of “anti-hero” disappeared from English Literature. As the 1950s moved
into the 1960s the world changed. The British economy gradually recovered, British society rapidly
changed with more wealth and more equality, the British government became more open and Britain
found a new role in world politics. By the 1980s the “angry young men” had become “angry middle-
aged men” and even “angry old men” and literature moved on.

The Return of the Hero?

Perhaps Society has always needed the example of a true hero to inspire us, or perhaps to give us
some kind of comfort. Proper “heroes” and “heroines” may still exist, even in corrupt and cynical
societies. The ongoing popular successes of films like “Superman”, “Indiana Jones” and the whole
James Bond series suggest the True Hero is still alive and well – even if he is currently living in the
cinema and not literature.

.
 214

POST MODERNISM
-an introduction
Students of all the arts – literature, music, painting, and all the other arts - can see how things change
as time passes. The ideas, subjects, philosophy and literary style of Shakespeare’s 17th Century
society are very different from Dickens’s 19th Century. The 18th Century Europe that Jonathan Swift
made fun of was very different from the early 20th Century Europe that the American, Henry James
wrote about.

These different ideas, different worries and different writing styles are usually placed into various
categories. These categories are given different names to indicate the general style of a particular
period of time.

However, it is very important to remember that nothing in life is quite so organised and neat as to fall
into “exact” categories. It is impossible to give an “exact” date when the Classical movement ended
and the Romantic movement began. These changes did not happen overnight – they were gradual ,
and they over-lapped.

In very general terms, English Literature and the other arts have seen a number of different styles and
periods, and they are usually listed as:

Medieval
Renaissance
Classical
Romantic
Realism
Modernism
Post-Modernism

The Romantic Age

The “Romantic” age gradually faded away in the second half of the 19th Century. The Gothic novels,
the romances of Walter Scott’s novels, the wild Yorkshire Moors of “Wuthering Heights” – all these
seemed old-fashioned and out-of-date as the world moved into “modern” times: steam trains, large
areas of coal-mines, whole towns being created around cotton mills.

Realism (1860 – 1920)

The age of “Realism” saw Charles Dickens writing about poverty, crime and abuse of children.
Thomas Hardy’s novels showed that under the surface of simple “romantic” village life there was
crime, injustice and greed. In Joseph Conrad’s novels the “romantic” and noble ideas of European
Empires bringing religion and civilisation to Africans and others was often not noble, but, in reality,
was based on cruelty and vice.

“Realism” reached its peak during the First World War. Ten million soldiers killed – and the War
Poets no longer writing poems of glory and honour, but questioning the Latin words carved on
hundreds of War Memorials throughout Europe: “Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori”

Modernism (1890 – 1940)

But “Modernism” did not start with the First World War. Before the end of the 19th Century there
were painters in France whose works were “modernist” The music of Stravinsky’s “Rite of
Spring” (1910) was “modernist” and caused a riot in Paris .
 215

In English literature the novels of Joseph Conrad had gradually changed from “realism” to
“modernism” And Society itself had gradually changed. So, what exactly were these changes?
What was “new” or “modern” in European society?
Society had changed . Because of the World War, the relationship between “servants”
and “masters” was changing Women were gaining equality with men.
Religion had changed. The writings of Charles Darwin questioned the whole basis of
Creation
Philosophy had changed. The writing of Friedrich Nietzsche and others changed the
nature of thought and belief.
Psychology had changed. The writings of Sigmund Freud changed the way we looked
at people’s behaviour.
The Modernist artists and writers were not part of any organised movement. They worked in many
different groups and as individuals. There were a lot of sub-divisions inside Modernism:
Impressionism
Expressionism
Symbolism
Existentialism
And a whole lot of other “isms”
“Modernism” saw great changes in the subjects and literary style of early 20th Century writers.
“Modernist” writers did not follow the old rules.

Poetry was freed from the rules of rhyme, metrical balance, orthodox development of
themes. Poets like T.S.Eliot (“The Waste Land”) and the American, Ezra Pound (“The
Cantos”) wrote “free verse”.
Novelists ignored the old rules of logical plot development and characterisation and
created “stream of consciousness” novels (e.g. James Joyce’s “Ulysses”)
Playwrights no longer followed the rules of time and place – and plays could now have
actors talk directly to the audience and have all kinds of “non-real” things happening on-
stage. (However, this was not a big thing in English playwriting. Most of the
experimental “modernist” plays were written by American like Eugene O’Neill and
Thornton Wilder, and – most importantly – by German playwrights like Bertholt Brecht.
British Theatre (unlike British novels and poetry) was not much influenced by
“modernism”

Artists like Picasso

and Salvador Dali
painted works
without any rules
of colour and
harmony.

Salvador Dali’s modernist

painting called “The
Dream”
 216

Post-modernism (1950 onwards)

From the end of the Second World War onwards, Society underwent a major
change once again. In the 1950s an American critic (an otherwise unknown
writer called R.P. Blackmur) invented the word “Post-Modernism” to
describe the “new” styles in literature, music and the arts.

By the 1980s the word “Post-Modernism” was being used to describe almost
everything in the arts. However, no one was very sure exactly what it meant.
Obviously “post” modernism meant those things that came “after” the
“modernists” – but was it really a change? Or was it just a development?

There were a few things that were different. “Post modernist” artists
The famous painting
• Did not worry about the “big” issues like the meaning of life by Andy Warhol

• Made gentle fun of the things that caused “anguish” to the modernists
• Were full of irony
• Were full of self-mockery
• Were happy to get involved in popular culture
• Reflected the high capitalism of the second half of the 20th Century
• Used the high-technology of the times
• Returned to older values of art being something to look at, not something that had to carry an
important “message”.

Some of the more obvious and outstanding examples of post-modernism in the arts are:

Art: Examples are the paintings of Andy Warhol (the famous picture of a tin of Campbell’s
Condensed Soup, or the multi-coloured images of Marilyn Monroe), and recent examples where a
dead sheep in a tank, or a pile of bricks have been exhibited as art.

Music: The composer John Cage created the ultimate in Post-Modernism with his piece of music
called “ 4 minutes and 16 seconds”. The pianist sits at the piano and the orchestra sits on the
platform for four minutes and 16 seconds in absolute total silence. The “sounds” of this silence – the
shuffling of feet, the occasional cough, the scraping of a chair – these are the sounds that make
“music”

Architecture:
In building design the post modernists have moved
away from the bare, concrete, heavy functional
buildings so loved by the Soviets. Examples like the
Sydney Opera House show a building that is a piece
of artistic beauty simply as a building in addition to
serving its purpose as an opera house. In London
there is a block of offices called the “Gherkin”,
because the building is designed in the shape of a
gherkin. It works as a group of offices, but it also
makes a visual piece of art.

Sydney Opera House, designed by the Danish Architect Jorn Utzon .

 217

Literature: “Modernism” in English Literature was a style very noticeable in English novelists
and poets. However, English playwrights remained very traditional in the first half the 20th Century
and were not much influenced by “modernism” In the second half the century there seems to have
been a reverse: English novelists carried on writing in the same style, while English playwrights
strongly embraced “Post-Modernism”.

Theatre: “Post Modernism” is very strong in the world of Theatre. Post-modernist writers like
Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter have had an important influence on world theatre. Samuel
Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker” are the most famous examples
of this.

Post-Modernism—serious art? Or just a joke?

It is impossible to make final judgements on the importance of Post-Modernism – simply because we
are living in the Post-Modernist age. Post-modernism does create a question: Is this “serious” art, or
is it a joke – but a joke that that makes us focus on what art is really about?

There are critics who say that the paintings, the dead sheep, the pickle-shaped buildings, the concerts
with no music and the plays where nothing at all happens for hours on end – all these things are jokes
and nothing to do with art. We are all being fooled – like the Emperor and his New Clothes in Hans
Andersen’s fairy-story. We all believe they are “art” because there are critics who tell us this IS
“art”.

There are others who say the Post Modernists are making us look at the things around us, making us
think again about the values of society, forcing us to look at life in a new and important way.

There are even some who are now talking about “Post-Post-Modernism” !