THE USE OF SATIRE IN DEPICTING SOCIAL ISSUES IN”LUCKY JIM”BY KINGSLEY AMISS

Abstract

The origin of this novel goes back to 1948 in the common room in Leicester University, where Kingsley Amis visited his best friend Philip Larkin.They had a conversation about the social matters and   realized  how  careless and incompetent teachers  were  about  their  job.  Amis  concludes that  they are not capable of teaching .  As a result, he began writing his  Lucky Jim  to portray the poor academic life in the society . Lucky  Jimwas not an only book to describe these topics. In fact, during that time a number of works appeared in the same way of Amis’s description for the English social and academic  life at that time. As in John Wain’s  Hurry on  Down (1953),  John  Osborne’s  Look  Back  in  Anger (1956),  John  Brain’s Room at the Top(1958) and many others,  the same situation  of the alienated young man is described and analyzed. The same poor situation of social life was widely studied and sharply portrayed in such works. Lucky  Jim can  be  considered  as  a  sharp  comic  story  describing  the snobbish  academic  life.  The  book  is  read as one  of  the  funniest novels reflecting the English academic and social life in  the  twentieth  century. There is a dark  irony    which  reflects  the  real  lifestyle  of  the  British community after the World War II.  In  the  article,  several  important actions and situations are cited in order toshow how Amis expresses the humor and  comic sides  in  Lucky  Jim, and the  serious  consequences  of  those actions.