UC Santa Barbara

This dissertation examines the relationship between the rebuilding of London after WWII and how the material aspects of the city represent and complicate notions of British middle-class subjectivity in the period. With decolonization and the general recognition of the United States as the new international military and cultural force, the British Empire was rapidly declining and no longer relevant in the modern world. Thus, “Britishness” had to be redefined because it was directly tied to the pre-war structures of empire and cultural imperialism. While a new national British identity was supposed to represent the entire country, it was particularly important for the middle class. The Labour party saw the rebuilding of London to posit a new, completely modern Britain that could erase its imperial past. Alternatively, the Conservative party saw rebuilding as a way to perpetuate a past British identity that would compensate for Britain’s loss of empire. Yet both parties were ultimately trying to create a utopian fantasy of Britain through rebuilding: this was a modernized and homogeneous society that celebrated traditional grandeur in the space of the city. However, the literary and cinematic narratives of the period demonstrate that the complicated rebuilding of the British middle-class was not homogenous. Through the analysis of space in the literature, film, and architecture of the 1940s and 1950s, I argue that the reconstruction of London is instructional for the formation of the post-war British middle class during a period of political and international turmoil.

To discuss the tensions of reconstruction, I turn to realist novels and films of the 1940s and 1950s, which offer several competing narratives of the changing middleclass through their depiction of space. In particular, I discuss how novels such as Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair (1951), Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women (1952), Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956), Colin MacInnes’ City of Spades (1957), and Anthony Burgess’ The Doctor is Sick (1960) and Carol Reed’s film, The Fallen Idol (1948), use the city of London to demonstrate a shifting middle class and alternatives to the overarching conservative nationalist sentiment in the 1950s. I read these texts in conjunction with archival materials such as architectural designs and planning documents, advertisements from the Festival of Britain (1951), and the promotional film, Proud City A Plan for London (1946), to emphasize the competing narratives between official state planning and the ongoing evolution of individuals’ use of space. Through the comparison of official documents to realist novels and films, complex versions of the British subjectivity emerge and counter narratives of a cohesive and collective British post-war middle class, particularly for younger generations. The comparison of these texts and documents reveal the disparate viewpoints and experiences of urban space. The government documents present the city as a homogeneous, contiguous space, whereas the realist literature and films instead describe the city dweller’s experience in navigating the city at the street level, which typically contradicts the official narratives . As the novels and films of the period demonstrate, rebuilding London and the middle-class was also gendered, and in restructuring the middle-class, notions of masculinity and femininity fundamentally changed with the shifting class structures. Part of the anxiety for the former middle class, particularly men, is the recognition that their old positions and status in British society are starting to disappear.

As much as the city planners promoted one cohesive, homogenous city, the history and social structures of London also complicated the plans to create a completely “modernized” city and society. Comprised of both the iconic historical markers of the past empire and the modernist architecture of Britain, the constant reinterpretation of the city undermines any utopian future outlined by official city planning. Although the city planners promoted the image of the city as a locus of social equality, this image was also quickly contradicted by the political events of the time. With the rise of the Conservative party and Churchill’s return as Prime Minister in 1951, London was newly viewed as a neo-imperial city despite the slow dismantling of the British Empire. Despite this turn to conservatism, I argue that it is the specifically British use of architecture and urban design is what produces a new, and newly classed, British identity after the war. Coined “Festival Style,” the new architecture and design combined International Modernist architecture with references to British history and traditional English building materials. It is through this project of design and official rhetoric that allows the British government to reshape and broaden how it envisioned the middle class and its constituents. As part of the project of modernization, the progressive design and politics, however historically referential, create more modern, and thus progressive, definitions of class and gender. The material details of architecture and city planning create a tangible example of a changing Britain.

My first chapter focuses on the initial plans to rebuild London as a modern and equal city by the government and the responses by the middle-class. I analyze the government film, Proud City A Plan for London (1946), to show the how the government believed that through modern urban planning and design, a new more equal British society would emerge. In direct contrast Graham Greene’s novel, The End of the Affair (1951), and Carol Reed’s film, The Fallen Idol (1948), reveal that as middle-class men see the world rapidly changing around them, including their material spaces, they ultimately reject those changes. I analyze the narratives’ use of masculine middle-class subjectivity and its relationship to rebuilding. For these men, rebuilding the city then becomes both a process of forgetting the past and part of the unknown future after WWII where they feel they do not have a place. My second chapter explores how the planning and rebuilding of London creates a city that combines imperial nostalgia with a socially progressive utopia through the use of Festival Design and modern aesthetics. I compare archival materials such as architectural designs and exhibitions, letters from the Festival planners, and advertisements produced in conjunction with the 1951 Festival of Britain to Iris Murdoch’s Under the Net (1956). In comparing these different objects, I will demonstrate that while the Festival architects, who were mostly under forty, presented a hopeful and modernized version of the British middle class and that perspective is reflected in the novels’ characters and portrait of London.

My third chapter discusses the relationship between the traditional conservative politics of the middle class and how the new city space allows for individuals to reimagine middle-class masculinity and femininity. I discuss three novels, Jean Rhys’ A Voyage in the Dark (1934), Excellent Women (1952) and The Doctor is Sick (1960) to show the failures of previous imperial gender norms were emerging immediately prior to World War II and heightened following the war. The modernization of London allowed for the possibility for new definitions of class and gender to form for even the most unlikely individuals. My final chapter focuses on the rebuilding of London, its relationship to decolonization, and middle-class subjectivity. In considering the racial tensions that run through British national identity in the post-war period, I analyze two novels, Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956) and Colin MacInnes’ City of Spades (1957), which document the immigrant experience in London through their black protagonists’ experiences and the novels’ relationship to its middle-class readership. The modern city that began with rebuilding mirrors new forms of British hybridity, constantly exposing the variety of identities in the nation, the ever-shifting notion of the city, and what it means to be middle class.