Lucky Jim 151larly in its use of satire to critique and ridicule higher
education. Equally, it is credited with instigating the
“angry young man” movement in the 1950s that also
included the writers John Osborne, Alan Sillitoe,
and Colin Wilson. Amis’s protagonist, Jim Dixon,
encapsulates the “angry young man” with his biting
sarcastic attitude, especially in response to the overt
class inequities and foibles lampooned by the novel.
In his first year as a junior lecturer of history at
a provincial, “red-brick” English university in the
postwar period, Dixon is forced to pander to his
absentminded, socially and culturally pretentious
supervisor, Professor Welch. Much of the charm
of Lucky Jim resides in following Dixon’s internal
commentary and fantasies of revenge on those he
encounters, especially Welch and his family. The
novel follows Dixon’s comic exploits as he struggles
with his job, his students, his would-be girlfriend,
and the entire social fabric of postwar Britain. Set
against the background of the university and Dixon’s
attempt to secure a job he is not even sure he desires,
Lucky Jim deals with such themes as work, social
class, and education.
Eric Leuschner
educatiOn in Lucky Jim
As one of the first widely acknowledged academic
novels, Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim features the
exploits and misadventures of a university faculty
member in an educational system that has become
the target of satire and ridicule. The description of
the unnamed university that serves as the novel’s set-
ting demonstrates the changing views of academia:
“An ill-kept lawn ran down in front of them to a
row of amputated railings, beyond which was Col-
lege Road and the town cemetery, a conjunction
responsible for some popular local jokes.” But it is
the characters that best serve the novel’s satirical
purposes, particularly the contrasting figures of Jim
Dixon and Professor Welch.
The novel’s protagonist, Jim Dixon, is a newly
hired junior history professor at a provincial Brit-
ish university. Unlike many of his older colleagues,
Dixon hails from a working-class family and back-
ground and so feels he does not fit in with the other
faculty, subscribing neither to the social nor the cul-
tural values of the Oxford or Cambridge set. From
the beginning, Dixon challenges the traditional
educational culture of the university, even choosing
his specialization in medieval history because it was
a “soft option in the Leicester course,” not because of
any real interest. He admits to a policy of reading “as
little as possible of any given book” and has violent
fantasies of what he might do to his superior. He
has little regard for even his own academic research,
the title of which, “The Economic Influence of the
Developments in Shipbuilding Techniques, 1450–
1485,” reflects what Dixon describes as the “niggling
mindlessness” of such scholarship. Yet he places
his future hopes in attempting to get it published
and is elated when he receives a vague promise of a
publication by a new journal, even though the letter
is addressed to “J. Dickinson” instead of “Dixon.”
Desiring some sense of stability and job security,
Dixon plays the game with halfhearted teaching
and research and continual attempts to socialize
and to please Welch and his ilk as he participates in
university politics.
As the novel’s major antagonist, Professor Welch
epitomizes the absent-minded, stodgy, overly pre-
tentious academic. In the novel’s introductory scene,
Dixon notes that “no other professor in Great
Britain, he thought, set such store by being called
Professor.” Dixon even questions Welch’s qualifica-
tions: “How had he become Professor of History,
even at a place like this? By published work? No.
By extra good teaching? No in italics.” Dixon leaves
the question unanswered, recognizing the fact that
Welch ultimately possesses the power to control his
future. What Welch and his family, in particular his
dilettante sons Bertrand the painter and Michel the
writer, also possess, however, is a cultural affectation
that consistently irks Dixon’s working-class sensi-
bilities. Welch constantly talks about performing
Renaissance music at his home with colleagues and
friends and even attributes to his home “some sort
of healing effect,” undoubtedly caused by the appar-
ent cultured ethos. Even though Dixon attempts to
endear himself to Welch in order to be retained on
the faculty, the sincerity of Welch’s concern is often
questioned, particularly as he, similar to the journal
editor, mistakenly addresses Dixon as Faulkner,
Dixon’s predecessor in the position, several times.