- Van İnsani ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi
- Issue: 5
- Criticism through Comedy on the Twentieth Century Society and Redbrick Universities: An Analysis of ...
Criticism through Comedy on the Twentieth Century Society and Redbrick Universities: An Analysis of Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Authors : Mehtap DEMİRTÜRK
Pages : 154-162
View : 20 | Download : 17
Publication Date : 2023-06-21
Article Type : Research Article
Abstract :The twentieth century is a period of change, with two world wars and ongoing developments in technology and industry that started in the previous century. Various effects of these improvements have been witnessed in different societies, cultures, languages, and works of literature, and all have affected the Higher Education system, especially in the United Kingdom. The old universities as Oxford and Cambridge had accepted students only through references and they did not satisfy the demands of the growing populations in big cities which needed manpower in the industry. This demand created new institutions described as Redbrick Universities which embraced students from different backgrounds without any reference, thus, the debate between the old and the new universities has begun. While the Redbrick universities were accused of being unsatisfactory academic foundations with their ineligible instructors, the old universities were criticized for capturing all useful advantages and resources. After the second world war, this debate led to the emergence of the campus novel, and one of its successful examples is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. This novel presents a non-idealistic, lazy academician who only cares about money with his weaknesses in his private life. Among other passive academic figures, he also tries to please the head of the department and his characteristics present criticisms about the structure of these new institutions as corrupted academic communities. In the novel, besides the academic world, twentieth-century society is severely criticized, for the understanding of love, class division, and women figures are simplified. Throughout the novel, the readers encounter that a man can acquire everything he desires with the help of his luck rather than his success, so this study aims to present the processes Amis had to break conventional values with the help of comedy to criticize the changing society of the century.Keywords : Toplumsal Eleştiri, Redbrick Üniversiteleri, 20. Yüzyıl Toplumu, Kampüs Romanı, Lucky Jim