| The image of the traditional working class has been shattered and replaced by Chavs image as a significant representation of the working-class in 21st century Britain. This paper aims to articulate working-class subjectivity and the struggle over the meaning of class in Gillian Slovo’s The Riots (2011). It aims to investigate working class culture as a significant interest that determines workers' life chances in modern society. The paper consults Bourdieu's main concept Habitus and Owen Jones' book Chavs: The Demonization of the working class which explores the class hatred during Thatcher's years. Working-class individuals become unemployed, drug abused, and criminals, eventually were forced to live in poverty of mind and body. Working-class individuals find themselves out of their works because of the government policy that plans to destroy them to remove any power that stands against their political decisions. Working-class individuals behavior, their language and taste become the main standards to identify their identity. Finding this new discourse is not a demonstration of poverty, exploitation and oppression or even alienation but the reflection of one's deviation and behavior. |
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