Adrian Mole as a Contemporary (Anti-) Hero and the British Cultural Context

Abstract

English literature undoubtedly offers a wide range of excellent literary works to analyse, so at first it seemed really difficult to decide who and what to choose to write my thesis about. I cannot explain why but my first idea for the topic was Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole diaries. So about a year ago I started to read or reread all the Mole diaries. Adrian’s life story has been following the majority of the late 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, so his life has been changing in parallel with my own life story, although he is ten years younger than me. Secondly, the novel has such an unusual title that it immediately seized my imagination, namely, the extremity of the word ‘secret’: if it is a secret, how can it be published? ... (Introduction)