Lucky Jim Themes

All through Lucky Jim, Jim Dixon seems to judge other people largely on their appearances, and he's got a great eye for detail. Margaret Peel, for example, is someone who gets little flecks of lips...

What would a satirical British novel be if it didn't take shots at England's snooty upper class and upper-class wannabes? History lesson alert! (A short one, we promise.) In 1950s Britain, it wasn'...

There's no area of the arts that gets a pass in Lucky Jim. Painting, writing, music-making, dancing—Jim thinks they're all phony. Just take a look at Bertrand Welch (a painter) and his "effeminat...

Lucky Jim presents a view of education—or at least the British means of getting one—as something questionable at best, and downright pathetic at worst. Amis pays special attention to showing ho...

Lucky Jim is in many ways a book about Jim's feeling that the world is a basically unfair place. After all, it's not easy for him to watch a big blowhard like Bertrand Welch walk into a party with...

Many characters in Lucky Jim spend a lot of time trying to create and maintain their reputations. Jim, on the other hand, seems bent on self-destruction. He's developing a rep, but it's not good. T...

If there's one thing we know about Jim from the get-go in Lucky Jim, it's that he loves himself a tall pint of beer. Jim turns to booze whenever the world around him gets a little too boring, which...

If there's one thing Jim likes as much as liquor, it's a pretty woman. His entanglements with two very different women give us the chance to see what Jim thinks about how women should or shouldn't...