The Welsh Theme in Kingsley Amis's Novel ‘The Old Devils’

Abstract

Kingsley Amis (1922–1995) is an English writer of the second half of the 20th century and a member of the Angry Young Men literary movement, the main theme of which was a young character’s protest against existing social norms and foundations.  However, his later novel The Old Devils (1986) deals with completely different problems and has a different tone. The novel is set in a small town in South Wales, and almost all of the main characters are elderly Welsh people. The use of the image of Wales in this case is legitimate: on the one hand, Amis follows John Wayne, who addresses the image of Wales in his novel A Winter in the Hills (1970); on the other hand, the writer is interested in the culture of Wales, especially in the works of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who became a prototype for the fictional poet Breedan, repeatedly mentioned in the novel. In addition, in the 1970s and 1980s, the question of the level of independence of small ethnic groups in Great Britain was brought to the fore again, as a result of which a number of reforms aiming to increase the region’s autonomy were introduced in Wales. Wales itself is presented in The Old Devils as a simulated space, devoid of authenticity and turned into a big tourist attraction. Such Wales is embodied in the novel in Breedan, who is elevated to a cult in the region and used as a local attraction, as well as in his double Alun Weaver, for whom Welshness becomes a tool to increase his media exposure. Kingsley Amis plays with common stereotypes about the Welsh that are spread among the English – those concerning drunkenness, greed, and adherence to tradition. At the same time, the Welsh characters speak ironically of these stereotypes by taking them to the point of absurdity. We can see that all the characters, to a certain extent, play the roles that are assigned to them.