ALFIE BY BILL NAUGHTON: IT'S KEY THEMES

Alfie by Bill Naughton: Its Key Themes

Table of Content

Introduction3

Key Themes in Alfie4

Overview of the Alfie Movie8

Theme of Abortion in Alfie by Naughton18

Abortion: A Brief Reflection19

Gilbert's Alfie: A Comparison with Saturday Morning, Sunday Night34

Naughton's Works and Their Diversity: A Holistic View39

Conclusion47

References/Bibliography49

Alfie by Bill Naughton: Its Key Themes

Introduction

Bill Naughton is best remembered for a series of working-class comedies he wrote in the 1960s, most notably Alfie (1963; film, 1966), an episodic, unsentimental tale of an egocentric Cockney womanizer. When Naughton was a child, his family moved from Ireland to Bolton, Lancashire. A Roof over Your Head (1945), an autobiographical study of life in northern England in the 1920s, was followed by a number of moderately successful novels and short-story collections. In the 1950s he moved to London to write for the humor magazine Lilliput and for radio and television. This paper discusses Alfie by Bill Naughton, its key themes and the portrayal of abortion in 1960s in a comprehensive way using the sources mentioned in the list of references.

The hero of Bill Naughton's 1966 novel Alfie is a cocky fellow, well-dressed and glib, a Cockney playboy who knows what it takes to woo the girls. When he first appears, Alfie is with Siddie, a "married woman of twenty-nine, so she said." She's his "regular Thursday night bint," (Baer, 2002) he explains, and "a fair bit of grumble, clean as a nut, a trifle on the leggy side for my fancy, with muscles on her calves" (Baer, 2002) But "she's got this beautiful chest" (Baer, 2002) And "talk about cleavage!--it's like the Rotherhithe Tunnel" (Baer, 2002).

They're parked near the Thames, at Blackfriars, in a Ford Consul deluxe. Alfie is done for the night, and done with Siddie too, although she doesn't know. Lately, she's been getting pushy, stepping too far into Alfie's space. "Once a married woman gets too hot on," (Baer, 2002) he advises, "that's the time to cool off. They get you into trouble and it's not worth it" (Baer, 2002).

Key Themes in Alfie

Alfie is full of advice, an impulsive talker: "I no sooner think something than out it comes. I can't keep anything to myself" (Luker, 1984). His is a riveting voice, by turns charming and repellent, full of shrewd insight and verve. And it's not surprising to learn that Naughton first created Alfred Elkins as a character in a 1962 radio drama that was soon turned into a successful London stage play starring Terence Stamp. Alfie was Naughton's first novel and sold well in both Britain and the United States, where it was promoted as another daring sign of changing literary times--the ribald confessions of a contemporary Casanova.

Born in 1910, Naughton was raised in Lancashire, and critics often placed him among "the Angry Young Men" (Luker, 1984)--a loose category of British novelists and playwrights who came to prominence during the postwar years. These included John Braine, John Osborne, David Storey, Allan Sillitoe, and Kingsley Amis, whose 1954 novel Lucky Jim was widely ...