The construction of (white) working-class identity in narrative literary texts and its contribution to socio-cultural and politico-financial inequality

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using Fredric Jameson’s theory of the ideologeme to trace representations of working- and white working-class characters through a selection of contemporary literary texts, this article shows how the construction of (white) working-class identity in literature has been influenced by, and fed back into, mainstream representations of the (white) working class in politics and media, thus contributing to cycles of socio-cultural, financial and political exclusion. This article continues by arguing that there is a lack of rounded and developed white working-class characters in British fiction, specifically in London and the South-East, and that contemporary authors continue to rely on typified representations rather than interrogate them, therefore remaining complicit in feedback loops that work to marginalise the (white) working class. To conclude, an argument is put forward in support of opening up space in the public arena for both imagined and real individual voices from marginalised groups to be heard, providing more direct access to channels of representation and an interrogation of the blame narratives that are used to maintain these groups’ socio-economic and political exclusion.