Date of Award
8-6-2007
Degree Type
Closed Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
History
First Advisor
Ian C. Fletcher - Chair
Second Advisor
Jared Poley
Abstract
In mid twentieth century Britain, after the experience of total war, evil was not an abstract concept but a palpable reality. How was evil understood, and how did this understanding influence notions of English national identity? This thesis examines the lives and works of C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J.R.R. Tolkien, members of the British literary club Inklings. It probes representations of evil, Englishness, gender and the erotic in their fiction and shows specifically how their science fiction, horror, and fantasy was a response to the moral and human devastation of two world wars. The thesis suggests that the Inkling’s middle brow literature opens a window on a wider sense of uncertainty and longing about Englishness in the eve of decolonization and decline.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/1059630
Recommended Citation
Rogers, Jr., Theodore C., "Evil and Englishness: Representations of Traumatic Violence and National Identity in the Works of the Inklings, 1937-1954." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2007.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059630