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AQA's Paper 2 Option B — Texts in Shared Contexts: Modern Times, Literature from 1945 to the Present Day — asks you to study literary texts within the historical, social and cultural contexts that shaped them. Before you can do that confidently, you need a working knowledge of the period itself. This lesson provides the contextual framework you will draw on throughout every text you study.
Britain emerged from the war victorious but economically exhausted. Rationing continued until 1954 — longer than in defeated Germany. The human cost was enormous: approximately 450,000 British military and civilian deaths, cities devastated by bombing (the Blitz destroyed large areas of London, Coventry, Plymouth, and many other cities), and a generation psychologically scarred by total war.
| Key Development | Detail |
|---|---|
| The Welfare State | The Beveridge Report (1942) identified five "Giant Evils": Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness. Clement Attlee's Labour government (1945–51) implemented its recommendations: the NHS (1948), National Insurance, council housing, and universal secondary education |
| Nationalisation | Coal, steel, railways, and utilities brought under state ownership. A fundamental shift in the relationship between state and economy |
| The Cold War | The wartime alliance with the Soviet Union collapsed. Britain tested its first nuclear weapon in 1952. The threat of nuclear annihilation shaped literature, culture, and psychology for four decades |
| Decolonisation | Indian independence (1947) began the dismantling of the British Empire. By the mid-1960s most of Africa and the Caribbean had gained independence |
Post-war literature reflected disillusionment, exhaustion, and anxiety about the new world order. The "Angry Young Men" of the 1950s — John Osborne (Look Back in Anger, 1956), Kingsley Amis (Lucky Jim, 1954), Alan Sillitoe (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1958) — rejected the genteel traditions of pre-war literature and gave voice to working-class frustration.
A-Level Tip: When analysing any post-1945 text, consider: what has the war done to these characters, this society, this language? Even texts that do not mention the war explicitly are shaped by its aftermath.
| Development | Significance for Literature |
|---|---|
| Sexual revolution | The contraceptive pill (available from 1961); decriminalisation of homosexuality (1967); the Abortion Act (1967); the Divorce Reform Act (1969). Literature could now explore sexuality with unprecedented frankness |
| Feminism (Second Wave) | Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (1970); the Equal Pay Act (1970); the Sex Discrimination Act (1975). Women's voices and experiences moved to the centre of literary culture |
| Immigration and race | The Windrush generation (from 1948) and subsequent Commonwealth immigration transformed British society. The Race Relations Acts (1965, 1968, 1976) attempted to combat discrimination. Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech (1968) crystallised racist opposition |
| Counter-culture | The rejection of conformity, experimentation with drugs and communal living, anti-Vietnam War protests. Literature became more experimental, politically engaged, and diverse |
The 1970s saw escalating conflict between trade unions and government — the miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974, the "three-day week," the "Winter of Discontent" (1978–79). This class conflict is central to understanding texts such as Churchill's Top Girls (1982).
Margaret Thatcher's governments (1979–90) transformed Britain:
| Policy | Impact |
|---|---|
| Privatisation | State industries sold off — gas, water, electricity, telecoms, steel |
| Monetarism | High interest rates, reduced public spending, inflation controlled at the cost of mass unemployment (over 3 million by 1983) |
| Anti-union legislation | Trade union power systematically curtailed. The miners' strike of 1984–85 was a defining moment |
| Individualism | "There is no such thing as society" — Thatcher's famous phrase encapsulated a philosophy of individual responsibility over collective welfare |
| The Falklands War (1982) | Military victory revived national confidence and secured Thatcher's re-election |
Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (1982) is the most directly political response on your course. Its overlapping dialogue, non-linear structure, and juxtaposition of historical and contemporary women interrogate the costs of Thatcher-era "success." Other key literary responses include:
| Development | Significance |
|---|---|
| Multiculturalism | Britain became increasingly diverse. "Britishness" was contested and redefined. Post-colonial literature — Zadie Smith (White Teeth, 2000), Andrea Levy (Small Island, 2004), Bernardine Evaristo (Mr Loverman, 2013) — explored hybrid identities |
| New Labour (1997–2010) | Tony Blair's government: devolution, minimum wage, Human Rights Act (1998), the Iraq War (2003). The Iraq War generated significant literary responses |
| Digital revolution | The internet, social media, and globalisation transformed communication, community, and identity |
| Financial crisis (2008) | Austerity politics, growing inequality, and the erosion of the welfare state created new anxieties |
| Brexit (2016) | The vote to leave the EU exposed deep divisions in British society — generational, geographical, educational, and class-based |
When analysing texts for Paper 2, you should be able to connect your reading to these recurring contextual themes:
Exam Advice: AO3 (context) is not about listing historical facts. It is about demonstrating how contextual factors shape the production and reception of literary texts. Always connect your contextual knowledge to specific textual features — language, form, structure, and narrative technique.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1945 | End of WWII; Labour landslide; Attlee becomes PM |
| 1948 | NHS established; Windrush arrives |
| 1956 | Suez Crisis — end of imperial pretension |
| 1963 | Profumo affair; Beatlemania; Plath's The Bell Jar |
| 1968 | Student protests; Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech |
| 1979 | Thatcher becomes PM |
| 1982 | Falklands War; Churchill's Top Girls premiered |
| 1984–85 | Miners' strike |
| 1989 | Fall of the Berlin Wall; end of the Cold War |
| 1997 | New Labour; Blair becomes PM |
| 2001 | 9/11; War on Terror begins |
| 2008 | Financial crisis |
| 2016 | Brexit referendum |
The strongest essays do not bolt context on as a separate paragraph. They weave contextual understanding into close reading. For example:
Weak: "Churchill wrote Top Girls during the Thatcher era. Thatcher was the first female Prime Minister."
Strong: "Churchill's overlapping dialogue — in which women speak simultaneously without listening to one another — formally enacts the fragmentation of feminist solidarity that Churchill saw as a consequence of Thatcher's individualist ideology. The play's structure embodies its political argument: that the 'top girls' who succeed in a competitive, individualist society do so at the expense of other women."
Notice how the strong example integrates context, form, and argument. This is what AO3 looks like at the highest level.