The Ice Age
by Margaret Drabble
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At a glance:
- Author: Margaret Drabble
- First Published: 1977
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social criticism
- Time of Work: November, 1975, to the spring of 1976
- Setting: Yorkshire, England, and Wallacia, an imaginary Balkan country
- Characters: Anthony Keating, Alison Murray, Len Wincobank, Maureen Kirby, Jane Murray, Giles Peters
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Satire, Novel
- Subjects: Values, 1970's, Self-discovery, Current events, Philosophy or philosophers, Communism or communists, Prisoners, Prisons, Religion, God, Adultery, Bankruptcy or financial crisis, Faith, Ethics, Property, Economic conditions, Diseases, Real estate, Investments or investors, Fraud, Great Britain, Ice Age
- Locales: Europe, England, Balkans, United Kingdom, Wallacia
Form and Content
Margaret Drabble’s The Ice Age uses property speculation to analyze English society during the 1970’s. The novel begins on Wednesday, November 18, 1975, and concludes in the following spring. The Arab oil embargo and the October War of 1973 hurt Great Britain’s economy, which is dependent on oil imports. The severe fuel shortage caused a three-day work week, labor unrest, a drastic drop in productivity, the collapse of the real estate market, and inflation that reached a rate of 26 percent in 1975.
Several intersecting stories make up the...
(The entire page is 2119 words.)
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