Working-Class Visibility in Rachel Seiffert's The Walk Home

Abstract

Driscoll argues that contemporary fiction and current criticism are no longer concerned with social class in general and the working class in particular. Identity now uses more flexible parameters, such as sexual orientation, a term that defines the individual as agent. He analyses a wide range of literary fiction and film in order to highlight that ‘class’ often means middle class. When authors do focus on the working class, their angle is predominantly negative.The second half of this article strives to see to what extent the Driscoll hypothesis is valid through applying his findings to Seiffert’s very recent novel. It refutes the argument that postmodern techniques necessarily produce apolitical texts, and puts into question other assumptions.