Context & Writer's Techniques (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes

Context & Writer's Techniques

Context

Published in 1953: post-war Britain looking back at the Edwardians

L. P. Hartley published The Go-Between in 1953, but the novel's action unfolds during the summer of 1900, at the height of the Edwardian period. This deliberate choice creates a powerful contrast between two different worlds and perspectives. The Edwardian society depicted in the novel was characterised by rigid class structures, an emphasis on surface gentility, and strict sexual morality that governed behaviour and relationships.

However, Hartley's post-war readers in the 1950s would have viewed this Edwardian world through a very different lens. Having lived through two devastating world wars and significant social upheaval, these readers understood the Edwardian era as ultimately naive and doomed. They could see that the characters were unaware of the disasters that awaited them.

Key critical source: Colm Tóibín's introduction to the Penguin Classics edition (2002) explores this temporal contrast in depth.

Class structure and social hierarchy

Edwardian class stratification fundamentally shapes every relationship and event in the novel. The rigid boundaries between social classes were not merely customs but deeply entrenched rules that determined who could associate with whom, who could marry whom, and what behaviours were acceptable.

The three main characters exemplify different class positions. Marian represents the upper class, bound by duty and family expectations. Despite her passionate nature, she cannot openly pursue a relationship with someone beneath her station. Ted Burgess embodies the working class. He possesses physical power and vitality, but society excludes him from the world of the upper classes, no matter his personal qualities. Leo occupies an interesting position as a lower-middle-class outsider at Brandham Hall. His intermediate position makes him susceptible to influence and manipulation by those above him, whilst he remains ignorant of the true dynamics at play.

Critical source: Malcolm Bradbury's The Modern British Novel (1994) analyses how class shapes the narrative.

Sexual morality and social repression

The Edwardian era imposed strict norms around sexuality and relationships. Society demanded female purity, particularly for unmarried upper-class women like Marian. Any discussion of sexual relationships had to remain hidden, conducted through euphemism and secrecy. The boundaries between classes also extended to sexual and romantic relationships, making cross-class affairs scandalous.

The forbidden affair between Marian and Ted drives the plot forward, but it also serves as a powerful symbol. It represents the destructive consequences of secrecy, showing how hiding natural human feelings creates tension and ultimately tragedy. The repression required by Edwardian society causes profound emotional damage to both the children caught up in adult affairs (like Leo) and the adults themselves (Marian and Ted).

Critical source: Marina MacKay's The Cambridge Companion to the Twentieth-Century English Novel examines sexual repression in the text.

Trauma, memory, and psychological damage

The novel's frame narrative presents Leo as an adult in 1950, still traumatised by the events of that summer in 1900. His psychological damage stems from multiple sources: the disturbing events he witnessed, his role as go-between which made him complicit in the affair, and his exposure to adult sexuality when he was far too young to comprehend it.

Significantly, Leo's rediscovery of his old diary at the beginning of the novel triggers the return of repressed memories. This narrative choice reflects Freudian ideas about repression that were widely influential in the 1950s when Hartley wrote the book. According to Freudian psychology, traumatic memories don't disappear but remain buried in the unconscious, continuing to affect behaviour and emotional life.

Critical source: Douglas Brooks-Davies's essay "Hartley's Fiction and Psychological Memory" in Essays in Criticism (1970s) explores this psychological dimension.

The Bildungsroman tradition

The Go-Between engages with the Bildungsroman tradition, the literary genre focused on a young person's coming-of-age and moral development. However, Hartley subverts the expectations of this genre in a tragic way.

Typically, in a Bildungsroman, the protagonist emerges from their experiences stronger and wiser, having learned important lessons about the world and themselves. Leo's story inverts this pattern. Instead of emerging stronger from his experiences, he remains emotionally frozen. His adult life is marked by withdrawal, inhibition, and an inability to form meaningful connections with others.

Writer's techniques

The framed narrative

Hartley employs a double time structure that moves between two distinct periods: Leo as an elderly adult in 1950, and Leo as a twelve-year-old child in 1900. This structural choice is fundamental to the novel's impact.

The frame narrative creates several important effects. First, it generates dramatic irony, as adult readers possess knowledge that the child Leo lacks. We can recognise the significance of events that he innocently misinterprets. Second, it establishes a pervasive sense of lost innocence, since we know from the outset that these childhood experiences will prove traumatic. Finally, it creates tension between past and present, between memory and experience, as the adult Leo struggles to confront events he has spent fifty years avoiding.

Symbolism

Hartley employs recurring symbols that have become widely recognised in critical analysis of the novel. These symbols carry thematic weight and create patterns of meaning throughout the text.

The weather and heatwave function as more than mere setting. The oppressive, unrelenting heat mirrors the rising sexual tensions between Marian and Ted. As the temperature climbs throughout the novel, so does the emotional pressure on all the characters. The heat also contributes to the climactic sense of inevitability, suggesting that the tragic conclusion is as unstoppable as the weather itself.

The colour green becomes strongly associated with Marian throughout the novel. It carries multiple connotations: fertility, vitality, and forbidden desire. The colour connects Marian to natural forces and physical passion, qualities that Edwardian society demanded she suppress.

The go-between role itself operates symbolically. Leo's position carrying messages represents the exploitation of innocence by adults pursuing their own desires. It also symbolises the destructive effect of adult secrets on children, as Leo becomes contaminated by knowledge he cannot process.

Use of language and narrative voice

Hartley carefully distinguishes between two narrative voices that reflect different stages of Leo's life and understanding.

The child's perspective dominates most of the novel. Hartley gives Leo's voice distinctive characteristics that mark it as authentically childish. Leo tends towards literal interpretations of what adults say, missing metaphorical meanings and implications. He demonstrates naive misunderstandings of adult behaviour and motivations. His observations focus on sensory detail rather than emotional analysis, describing what things look like, sound like, or feel like without grasping their emotional significance.

The adult's perspective interrupts occasionally, providing a very different voice. The older Leo offers interpretation, commentary, expressions of regret, and psychological insight that the child lacked. However, even the adult narrator struggles with certain revelations, showing that trauma continues to inhibit his understanding.

This contrast between the two voices is central to the novel's emotional impact, creating pathos as we watch a child moving innocently towards disaster.

Dramatic irony

Hartley's use of dramatic irony depends on the gap between multiple levels of understanding. There is what Leo understands (very little about adult relationships and sexuality), what readers understand (we can see the affair developing and recognise the danger), and what the adult narrator knows but still cannot fully face (the complete truth of what happened and his role in it).

The function of this technique is to heighten both tension and tragedy. We watch Leo moving unknowingly towards a traumatic revelation, unable to intervene or warn him. This creates a sense of inevitable disaster that makes the climax more powerful.

The country house as microcosm

Like many Edwardian novels, The Go-Between uses the country estate as a microcosm of society. Brandham Hall represents an isolated world governed by ritual and tradition, symbolic of a society that believes itself secure and permanent.

The house's characteristics reflect broader social structures:

• It is isolated from the outside world, with its own rules and hierarchies
• It is governed by strict ritual, from mealtimes to dress codes to social interactions
• It represents a society that believes itself secure, unaware of how fragile its foundations have become

Foils and character contrast

Hartley uses foils—contrasting characters who highlight each other's qualities—to embody the novel's central themes.

Marian versus Mrs Maudsley presents a clear contrast. Marian represents passion, natural feeling, and the desire to break free from social constraints. Mrs Maudsley embodies control, repression, and the enforcement of social rules. The mother enforces the very restrictions that are destroying her daughter's happiness.

Ted Burgess versus Hugh Trimingham contrasts two suitors and two types of masculinity:

• Ted represents vitality, physicality, and working-class sexuality. He is natural, passionate, and physical.
• Hugh represents honour, propriety, and aristocratic obligation. He is the socially appropriate match, disfigured by war, bound by duty.

Slow reveal and withholding information

Hartley deliberately delays key revelations, controlling the flow of information to readers. He withholds explicit description of the affair, keeping the physical relationship largely offstage. He delays full understanding of the adults' motives and emotions. Most significantly, he withholds the circumstances of Ted's death until late in the novel.

This technique serves multiple purposes:

• It mirrors Leo's own ignorance, as we discover things roughly when he does
• It builds tension, as readers sense something is wrong but cannot quite grasp what
• It emphasises trauma and repression, suggesting that some truths are too painful to confront directly

Atmosphere and setting

The novel's atmosphere is deliberately and carefully crafted. Hartley creates a world that feels languid, moving slowly through long, hot days. It is oppressive, with the heat weighing down on everyone. It possesses a dreamlike quality, as if events are unfolding in a hazy, unreal space.

The heatwave intensifies everything:

• It intensifies the characters' repression, making their restraint even more difficult to maintain
• It intensifies Leo's discomfort, both physical and emotional
• It contributes to the sense of fateful inevitability, as if the heat itself is pushing events towards their tragic conclusion

Themes embedded in technique

Many of Hartley's techniques directly express and reinforce the novel's key themes. The form and content work together to create meaning.

Innocence versus experience emerges through Leo's limited perspective. By filtering events through a child's understanding, Hartley shows how innocence cannot comprehend or protect itself from experience. The contrast between child and adult narrators reinforces this theme throughout.

Class divide appears through setting, dialogue, and symbolic contrasts. The physical spaces characters inhabit, the language they use, and the symbolic opposition between characters like Ted and Hugh all emphasise how class shapes every aspect of life.

Memory and trauma are explored through the frame narrative and adult retrospection. The structure itself embodies the way trauma affects memory, how the past invades the present, and how some events can never be fully processed or left behind.