EN263 Devolutionary British Fiction 1930-Present
Essay Two
Due: Term 3, Week 1, Wednesday 26th April 2010
Maximum Word Length: 2,500
Choose one of the following questions. You must refer at length to at least two set texts from TERM
2 in your discussion.* You may want to compose your own question; this is encouraged, but only
following consultation with your tutor.
*Excepting question 9.
1. Can we interpret ‘privatisation’ as more than an economic feature in some of the novels we have
read?
2. ‘If the idea of multiculturalism makes some people vertiginous, monoculturalism – of whatever
sort – is much worse.’ Hanif Kureishi, ‘The Carnival of Culture’, The Guardian, August 4, 2005.
Assess the manner in which devolutionary British texts address themes and issues of British
multiculturalism.
3. Write an essay on the treatment of either pornography, or sexuality, or violence in any two texts
you have read this term. (Make sure and refer at some point to ‘British’ or ‘devolutionary’ coordinates here).
4. Several novels we have read this term display elements of metafiction – or the process of writing
fiction. Make a case for this to be understood as a devolutionary feature.
5. ‘There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.’
(Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women’s Own magazine, 1987)
Is there such a thing as society in devolutionary fiction?
6. Discuss ways in which devolutionary fiction from this term uses the past or the future to analyse
the present.
7. ‘And look at me mum, squatting pissed in a tube-hole at Tottenham Court Road. I just come out of The Ship, talking
to the most blonde I ever met, shouting: Lager lager lager lager. Shouting: Lager lager lager lager. Shouting: Lager
lager lager…’ (Underworld, Born Slippy, 1995)
Write an essay either on the subject of drinking and/or hedonism, or the subject of morality and youth culture in
Britain in the texts you have studied this term.
8. Why do some devolutionary texts use a fantastic (or otherworldly or non-British) setting, to reflect
their British (or national/local) context?
9. Make a case for the inclusion of a novel you have read that is not on the course. Your essay must
refer to at least one set text by way of comparison. The novel must be ‘British’ and from the last
twenty–five years.
10. Write about the politicised role played by one of the following in term two texts: the city;
deindustrialisation; London; gender difference; nature and/or landscape; political resistance; journeys;
borders; class difference; techno; memory; tourism; drugs; crime; language; the body as body politic.
11. Critically compare a text originating from one British national context to another (e.g. a Scottish text with a Welsh
one). Refer to formal as well as thematic issues in your answer.
12. Evaluate the manner in which some devolutionary novels can be perceived as responses to or analyses of
Thatcherism. Discuss with reference to at least two course texts.
13. Liam McIlvanney* has argued in relation to the institution of the devolved Scottish Parliament, that contemporary
Scottish writers such as Alasdair Gray, James Kelman and Irvine Welsh functioned as ‘Scotland’s unacknowledged
legislators’; their writing operating as ‘a kind of substitute or virtual polity’ for Scotland. Do any two non-Scottish
texts we have studied this term fit a similar profile?
*‘The Politics of Narrative in the Post-War Scottish Novel’, in Zachary Leader (ed), On Modern British Fiction (Oxford:
OUP, 2002)
14. ‘Take devolution and nationalism. While the United Kingdom has always been a country of different nations and
thus of plural identities --- a Welshman can be Welsh and British just as a Cornishman or woman is Cornish, English
and British - and may be Muslim, Pakistani or Afro Caribbean, Cornish, English and British --- the issue is whether we
retreat into more exclusive identities rooted in 19th century conceptions of blood, race and territory, or whether we
are still able to celebrate a British identity which is bigger than the sum of its parts and a Union that is strong because
of the values we share and because of the way these values are expressed through our history and our institutions.’
Speech by the Rt. Honourable Gordon Brown MP, July 2004.
Using the above quotation as a platform for your discussion, analyse how devolutionary texts can be interpreted as
either supporting or rejecting the sentiments it expresses.