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Articles

Volume 14, Number 2 (1989)

The Lumpenproletariat in The Golden Dog and Roger Sudden

  • E. J. Wiens
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1989-06-06

Abstract

The role of the lumpenproletariat in William Kirby's The Golden Dog and in Thomas Raddall's Roger Sudden is a vital if usually overlooked one. These characters, although secondary at best, play a vital thematic part in both novels. In The Golden Dog, their presence exhorts others to charity, therefore (the novel implies) saving the givers' souls. They also act as guardians of songs and folk traditions. In Roger Sudden, their role is more overtly, if vaguely, political: the lumpen manifest a larger, autonomous historical force, an imminent life-idea, a national essence. In times of emigration and pioneering, the innate tradition and unity of the lumpenproletariat enforces a larger national unification.