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Hartless, Jon (2024) Constructing Churchill. PhD thesis, University of Gloucestershire. doi:10.46289/JNVZ1445
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Abstract
Constructing Churchill is presented as a work of metafiction, in which the novel and critical commentary are combined into one volume. The narrative explores the way in which the Establishment preserves itself by maintaining control of nationalistic mythology, thus presenting a hegemonic, binary view of right and wrong, valid and invalid etc, through which society can be ideologically maintained and controlled. The specific focus will be on just one modern day variation of this; Churchillian hagiography, in which Churchill the man has been rendered into Churchill the Myth, beyond all criticism. The novel makes use of theorists such as Chandler and Althuser, to explore how society and language is made, as well as Hroch, and Taylor, to examine how nationalism itself operates. as well as the Great Man Theory initiated by Carlyle, which still proves a powerful point of appeal for the establishment. In a similar vein, books such as John Tosh’s Historians on History and E.H. Carr’s What is History have also been of central importance. The novel uses postmodern, metafictional commentary to deconstruct the concept of the novel, thus allowing the book to similarly deconstruct Establishment norms and assumptions behind concepts including the biography, history, and society. This is done via satirical footnotes which almost act as a metacommentary on the main action of the book, asking questions of the Establishment narrative and assumptions in a way that hopefully rings back to earlier satirists and their intentions. The novel follows Yvonne Jones, a young, black woman from a nouveau (comparatively) riche family who finds her dreams of success in the world of publishing are curtailed by the fact she doesn’t belong to the social elite, and as such she will never be given the same chances handed out by the elite on behalf of the elite. The elite is represented within the novel in the figures of Michael Vansittart, the owner of Clavier and Coldwell publishing, his Etonian friend, Sebastion Featherstonehaugh, (Deputy Minister of Culture (Regions)), Terrance Rogerson, a right-wing journalist (and ex-Etonian)born into privilege and Rupert Hutchinson-Cockburn, who like Yvonne is an unpaid volunteer at Clavier and Coldwell, but unlike Yvonne, has a trust fund, social contacts, and a public school (Eton) background, and as such, he just has to wait for opportunities to be given to him by his social group.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | |||||||||
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | the Novel; society; language; Churchill the man; Churchill the myth; history | |||||||||
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) P Language and Literature > PR English literature |
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| Divisions: | Schools and Research Institutes > School of Arts, Culture and Environment | |||||||||
| Depositing User: | Anne Pengelly | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 02 Oct 2026 14:40 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 05 Oct 2026 13:16 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/16559 |
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