“Look at the State of This Place!”: The Impact of Domestic Space on Post-war Class Consciousness

Abstract

This essay looks at negotiations of class consciousness in the kitchen sink realism movement, specifically the way representations of space and the built environment shaped identity. It shows how texts from the period amplified portrayals of classed space to underscore spatial limits, necessitating a disarticulation of monolithic class identity as the result. It argues that the movement’s narratives encourage modifications of class consciousness in which domestic confines are disputed and remapped in a manner that anticipates a restructuring of working-class attitudes and beliefs. In this regard, kitchen sink texts should not be read merely as mimetic representations of mid-century working-class life, but as guides that helped working-class people navigate cultural change and contest the limits of their own existence.