Ethical Appeals Of The “Angry Young Men”

John Braine(1922-1986)is one of the leading figures of the British “Angry Young Men”school in the 1950 s.His works are primarily concerned with the social reality and various ethical issues confronted by young people,aiming at conveying his concern for social issues.Room at the Top,John Braine’s masterpiece,is regarded as one of the best novels to fully display the social life of British society after the Second World War.Room at the Top tells the story of Joe Lampton,a working-class young man,who breaks down the class barriers by taking improper measures and finally incurs tragedies to himself and others.This thesis mainly uses ethical literary criticism to interpret various ethical issues faced by the three protagonists from perspectives of ethical environment,ethical identity,ethical predicament,etc.,aiming at exploring ethical values of the novel and probing into the ethical appeals of the “Angry Young Men” school.This thesis,by applying Professor Nie Zhenzhao’s ethical literary criticism,first returns to the ethical locale of Room at the Top,analyzing political,economic,and social ethical context of the “Angry Decade”.Secondly,it analyzes causes of Joe’s ethical tragedy.With the identity transformation from a member of the working class to the middle class,Joe’s ethical identity and values have changed dramatically.In his complicated love triangle,various combinations and alternations of his Sphinx factor push him into ethical predicaments.Therefore,under the control of animal factor and irrational will,Joe degenerates from an upright youth to a rapist,a murderer,and finally a “zombie”.Then,the thesis analyzes Alice’s ethical identity and ethical predicament.The confusion of her multiple identities inevitably plunges her into an ethical predicament and eventually leads her to final destruction.Finally,this thesis examines Susan’s failure in ethical identity recognition within different ethical relationships and its causes--the lack of ethical enlightenment,the weak ethical consciousness,the patriarchal oppression,etc.In Room at the Top,John Braine gains insight into characters’ inner world.By depicting the characters’ physical and psychological destruction caused by ethical issues,the tragic effect of the novel is enhanced.The tragedy demonstrates the hefty price that human beings need to pay for their destruction of the ethical order.Room at the Top reflects people’s ethical panic of breaking down class barriers via improper means in the period of social mobility.It profoundly reveals a postwar generation’s corruption and destruction exerted by the social atmosphere and class division.The novel conveys John Braine’s ethical appeals for the reconstruction of socialethical order.From an ethical literary perspective,this thesis conducts a new interpretation on Room at the Top and explores its ethical nature,offering a new way to study the “Angry Young Men” literary works.