Liminality of the London Underground as a Tool for Social Criticism in British Urban Fantasy
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Due to several factors in its origin and history, the London Underground is an embodiment of a liminal place, as defined in Bjorn Thomassen’s Liminality and the Modern: Living Through the In-Between (2014). Since its advent, the Underground has been used as a setting in both literary and popular fiction, often in the form of social commentary or criticism, as it is shown in David Welsh’s study on the Underground in literature from the very beginning to the middle of the 20th century, Underground Writing (2010). The frequency only increased since the 1990s, when urban fantasy, a genre that is almost always politically and socially conscious, rose in popularity. The paper will begin with the discussion of the historical factors that allowed the London Underground to acquire such a status. Among these factors are the excavation method of the first tunnels, sheltering of citizens during WWII, various accidents in the network, the dilapidation and neglect in the second half of the 20th century, and the Underground’s frequent presence in urban legends. Then, through close reading of several British urban fantasy novels, including but not limited to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (1996), Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series (2011, ongoing) and Simon Morden’s Down Station (2016), the paper will show how the authors employ the liminality of the Underground as a tool for social criticism, highlighting, among others, the issues of stereotyping and social invisibility of the homeless and other marginalized people, and hostility towards them. |
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