Volume 4, Number 1


 

British polity in selected British novels
Tummala, K.K.

This article examines British polity as depicted by distinctive writers in four chosen books. Those are Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels, 1726), Charles Dickens (Hard Times, 1854), A.J. Cronin (The Stars Look Down, 1935) and C.P. Snow (Corridors of Power, 1964).

In spite of the fact that the novel is a type of universal craftsmanship, its roots are locative. For the purpose of this article, it is accepted that authors usually are the products of the times they lived in. Influenced by the environment, s/he endorses or dislikes, admires or censures and adorns or corrupts such environment. Considering the contemporary sensation amid specific times, which is generally reflected in any work of art concomitant with the conceptualization of the writer, the compositions mirror the predominant societal conditions amid each separate time period.

The four selected books delineate English life and political frameworks at four distinct phases of advancement, beginning with next-to-primitive to the most recent, which is not necessarily the current 21st century. They clarify not only the socio-political and economic systems of their respective times, but also expound the problems of the day as they saw and understood it.

Keywords: Political Culture; Social Class; Political System