THE POST-WAR DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
SOCIETY
The Second World War in particular had a profound effect on British society. After the profound hardships the war placed upon its citizenry—in particular its lower classes—there was then a society-wide question of what all this suffering had been for.
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In lieu of Britain’s victory in the war, “radical social change” was promised. (Sinfield, 14) The government promised its lower and middle-class citizens employment subsidy for health, employment, secondary education, and housing, all luxuries that traditionally only the upper class had enjoyed. Whereas the pre-war social order had been aristocratic, the government was now attempting to introduce a society where all its citizens had a stake.
THEATRE
This (largely unfulfilled) promise went on to manifest in the “Angry Young Men” theater of the mid 1950s, where young dramatists sought to assume the theater as a well-deserved platform with which to discuss the contemporary problems of the day. (Hinchliffe, 23)
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Pinter himself largely abstained from overtly political plays early in his career, instead seeking to explore the dynamics of power.
Source:
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Literature, Politics, and Culture in Postwar Britain
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Harold Pinter: Revised Edition