"Angry Youth"

 　　"Angry youth" is a general term for a group of young writers active in the British literary world in the 1950s. More precisely, it is not a literary school, because it has neither a clear literary program nor a fixed literary group or literary proposition. The name "Angry Youth" originally came from journalist Leslie Paul's biography of the same name and was later borrowed by critics to refer to cynical young writers such as John Osborn, Kingsley Amy , Colin Wilson, John Bryan, Alan Sillito, etc.

　　If the "Beat Generation" writers in the United States resisted the world with alcoholism, drug addiction, and homelessness, these radical "angry youths" in the United Kingdom exposed the poverty of the middle and lower classes in their novels and scripts by adopting traditional realism realistic methods. The fate of the people, ruthless satire and criticism of the social status quo. Most of them have received a good education but come from the lower classes of society. They are in pain and rebellion from beginning to end, and expose and attack the dark reality through their works. Alan Sillito is the most notable of the "Angry Youth" writers.

　　Alan Sillito was born on March 4, 1928 in a working family in Nottingham, central England, with D. H. Lawrence, the most famous British working-class writer in the twentieth century. Cilito's father was a leather worker. Due to his poor family background, he had no chance to receive a good education. At the age of 14, he dropped out of school to work in a bicycle factory, and later worked as an air traffic control assistant for a year. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he was drafted into the army and joined the Royal Air Force as a radio operator in 1946. He served in Malaysia for two years, and was treated for 18 months in hospital for tuberculosis. During this period, he began to try to write, and then lived in France and Spain for 6 years. During his move to a small island in Spain, Majorca, he taught English and created literature at the same time. In 1959, she married Ruth Finnright, an American poet whom she had met for many years, and continued to write under the encouragement of the famous British poet Robert Graves. Ruth was born in New York, USA, and moved to England at the age of 15, during which she lived temporarily in France and Spain. It was on the island of Majorca that Ruth and Cilito met unexpectedly. Their common literary aspirations and pursuits made two literary lovers of the same age develop a little love for each other, and they began to frequent each other. Communication, which prompted them to eventually go to the marriage hall.

　　Silito was self-taught all his life, and while in Malaysia, he became fascinated by Teresel's novel about workers, The Philanthropist with Ripped Pants. During his hospital stay, he studied translations of Greek and Latin classics. His creative thought was deeply influenced by Lawrence, he was well versed in the life of the bottom of the society, and was good at the theme of workers. In 1956, he published his first collection of poems, "No Beer, No Bread", followed by his first novel, "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", which described the working class of Nottingham. The book has been rejected by the publisher four times. Once published, it was well received and received a huge response. It caused a sensation in the literary world, and soon became a bestseller. Silito became famous. From then on, he was known as the representative writer of the "Angry Youth" in the later period, a real working-class writer.

　　The novel "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" tells the story of bicycle factory worker Arthur Seaton. Arthur Seaton, 21, has been in the factory since he was 15, earning £14 a week. For six days, he worked hard until the weekend, sweating from his internal organs, and he went to enjoy himself when he earned money. His heart was full of dissatisfaction, disgust, resentment, and hatred, and he regarded everything that was going on as a "thorn in the eye". He hated the harsh environment in the factory, the heavy manual labor, the "welfare" system of the state, and even the foremen who trampled the workers under their feet. In order to express his resistance, he despised the traditional moral code, and used alcoholism, fighting and playing with women to vent his strong rebellion. Despite his rebelliousness, he did not dare to defy the laws of the country openly, and acted only on the principle of pleasure. He believes that only on Saturday night and Sunday morning can he truly belong to himself, and he can get rid of the boring work and the harsh difficulties of the foreman and trade union cadres, and then he can live a free and unfettered life. So on Saturday night Sidon went to hang out with women and drink and have fun, and on Sunday morning he went fishing. Wine anesthetized him, and he could temporarily forget the pain, and women let him vent, and he could enjoy the pleasure of sensuality. Because he was too shy to get a wife, he started to think of a married woman. He had an affair with Brenda, the wife of his colleague Jack, and impregnated her. It wasn't enough, he also got Brenda's sister Winnie to bed, only to be found by Winnie's soldier husband, beaten and couldn't get out of bed for a long time. Later, he met Doreen, an innocent and pure girl, and he pursued it desperately and got Doreen's love, but continued to fool around with other women. Then he came to his senses and realized that he should be faithful to women, so he broke off the relationship with sister Brenda Winnie and married Doreen 3 months later - he seemed to compromise with the society he had always hated and hated . At the end of the book, he goes fishing in the river. He caught one, but in its eyes saw the fish's strong desire to live. That fish is like himself, bullying the weak, eating fish smaller than himself and avoiding bigger fish. He let it go. When the float jumped again, he sat down again and waited for the fish to take the bait. Because he knew that for the sake of life, this time there was no room for reconciliation, it was like a war that could only be won but not lost. The novel truly describes the life of the British lower working class after the war, and successfully shaped the image of an "anti-hero" worker in the "welfare state" period. The novel, which won the London Writers Club Award, was adapted into a film by Cilito himself in 1960, directed by Karel Rez and starring Albert Finney. The film became a classic in film history.

　　With the miserable life of the afflicted workers as the theme, Sillito uses the method of British critical realism to truly reproduce the social appearance of Britain after World War II to readers. It shows the limitations of workers as a class in itself and the necessity of urgently transforming them into a class in itself, which greatly shocked the readers. Silito himself is a later representative of the group of "angry youth" writers. In his novels, he incorporates the "angry youth"'s resentment and sense of resistance to the society, thus successfully shaping a conflict-ridden, survival-oriented novel. The image of the worker who constantly resists and finally compromises.

　　First, Seton is a social rebel, an antihero. In the face of cruel exploitation, inhuman labor, low wages, and the grim reality, his heart is full of helplessness, anger, hatred, and hostility. He was out of tune with everything and complained about everything. He regarded factory managers, workshop foremen, trade union officials and other power classes as enemies, and tried every means to tease and play.

　　Secondly, Sidon is an angry youth full of hooliganism and an extreme egoist. He has no hope for life, and he has no lofty ideals in life. Everything is self-centered, and he lives by drinking, fighting, and flirting. Although he was furious with the society, he did not dare to resist stubbornly with open flames, and his resistance was blind. His obsession with life and death is a typical manifestation of an extreme egoist.

　　In the end, the "Jungle" law of the law of the jungle is embodied in Sidon. He doesn't read much and has low education, but he knows how to enjoy happiness and pursue a happy life. His behavior of social resistance revealed the original vitality of human beings. All he did was to seek the most basic human need—survival. Seton believes that "I am who I am, and no one else; whatever people think, or who I am, I happen to be not that kind of person because they don't know me at all". Sidon did not consciously rebel against that unfair and cruel society, but a direct expression of the natural law of "survival of the fittest".

　　In 1959, his second novel, The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner, came out, telling the story of a juvenile delinquent who rebelled against society because of his anger and dissatisfaction, showing the loneliness, resentment and strong sense of resistance of a rebellious teenager. This novel is actually a collection of short stories, including a total of nine short stories, among which the novel of the same name was also rated as "one of the most outstanding short stories in Britain" by critics. Colin is a child of a poor family in Nottingham, with a poor family and a poor life. Feeling hopeless in life, Colin often does petty thefts. Once he was caught stealing and was sent to a labor camp. Colin is good at long-distance running. Only when he is running cross-country can he feel relaxed in body and mind, galloping in freedom, and can he forget his despicable class background and his humiliating labor camp status. Because of his special talent, the dean took a fancy to him and asked him to practice long-distance running to prepare for an important competition. If he wins, it will undoubtedly represent a medal and honor for the labor camp, and Colin himself will also receive favorable treatment and a bright future. So Colin went to cross-country running training on an empty stomach every morning to repay the dean's kindness. He works hard and expects to get good grades. But in a very important cross-country race, Colin suddenly woke up on the track, obeying the will of the dean means surrendering to those in power, and it also means giving up his independence and rebellion. Even if you finally win the game, you are just a pawn in the hands of others, a tool used to seek honor and wealth. So he ignored the urging of the dean at the end of the race, deliberately slowed down, and lost the game in revenge for the dean. He would rather endure severe punishment than give up independent will and the right to resist. During the rest of the labor camp, Colin was tortured and suffered from pleurisy. After his release from the labor camp, he continued his stealing career.

　　This novel focuses on the psychological description of the protagonist and weakens the plot, which is also the most significant feature of the novel. When describing the changes in Colin's psychological activities on whether to retaliate against the dean, the novel carefully tries to figure out the inner activities of the characters, and the descriptions are delicate and vivid. If you don't take revenge, you will become the dean's tool to make money and gain honor. The strict long-distance running training when you are young will lead to illness, and when you are old, you will be lonely, disabled and frail. If they retaliate, the upper class headed by the dean will try their best to torture themselves, and even if they go out, they will have nowhere to go. Hesitating again and again, Colin still made up his mind to take revenge. This arduous reflection is actually an image summary of the inescapable and helpless predicament of the ugly reality of life. The whole novel adopts the method of inner monologue, which reproduces the complex psychological activities of the protagonist before and after the long-distance running competition. At the same time, the use of hallucination description techniques increases the performance of the novel. As Colin imagined himself running long distances, throwing off all his opponents, running alone through pebbles, swamps and reeds, but still unable to escape the trick of fate, the bullets fired by the police hit him impartially . However, the description of this novel is still based on realism. The Runner's Lonely, which won the 1959 Hawthorndon Award, was later adapted into a film by Sillito and was a huge success when it was released in 1962.

　　Although the novels "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" are full of "displeasure and anger," Sillito makes no attempt to find the cause of this revolt, much less to find a solution to it. The breakthrough and the provision of a practical method, it is only to record the observations truthfully from one's own personal experience, which may be the biggest shortcoming of Silito's works. This limitation is manifested in Silito's other later works. Novels such as "The Key to the Door" and the trilogy "The Death of William Postes" all show the living background of workers and record the thoughts and motives of these people who are irresponsible to society. In his works, Sillito neither praised nor condemned it, but he did not try to dig out the reasons for this kind of resistance after all, he just downplayed the plot of the story, and did not presume any solution to social problems.

　　Silito's later works lost the sharp critical edge of the earlier period, and the themes were mostly expressing people's loneliness and spiritual disillusionment, such as "Her Victory", "Lost Spaceship", "Out of the Vortex" and so on. Cilito has written a lot, with more than 60 works, and is a veritable prolific writer. His masterpiece "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" sold enormously and became one of the most popular novels in the UK.

　　In the history of English literature in the 20th century, Lawrence is a novelist who is famous for describing workers, and other writers are rarely interested in workers. Silito not only inherits and breaks through his predecessors, but also makes a new and unique way of writing. His works do not blindly describe the simplicity of the workers, nor do they directly describe their unbearable experiences of being exploited and oppressed, but instead place characters in a real and tragic environment to explore in detail the reasons for their tragedies and their own lives. Contradictory psychology, showing the behavior of the characters naturally without exaggerating the decoration. At the same time, combining the two into one, the tragicomedy is integrated, which makes the novel more appealing and aesthetic, and strengthens the spirit of the novel's criticism and disclosure of society. In addition, the novel uses a lot of colloquial language and common sayings to fully demonstrate the real life of the workers. At the same time, the meticulous psychological description delicately depicts the inner ambivalence of the characters, and outlines the difficult process of the little people struggling to fight against the society and then compromising with their fate.

　　Sillito's novels make English literature more vibrant and more real, and make readers see the inner life of the lower class in an unadorned northern industrial city. Although the author does not agree with the concept of class, he declares that his literary creation has no political purpose. Sillito once said: "When my work began to be published, I was amused to hear that critics and journalists included me as a 'working-class writer'... What does it mean? I am just living the life of his or her first eighteen ideas for the sake of writing, just like any other novelist." Compared with other writers of "Angry Youth", he has the most obvious political inclination.