The Ballad of Peckham Rye Social Concerns

The Ballad of Peckham Rye Social Concerns

Muriel Spark's major concern in The Ballad of Peckham Rye—as in many of the rest of her novels and short fiction—is the problem of class and class-consciousness and its effect on morality and the relations between the sexes. Though Spark has claimed not to be a very political writer, this novel nevertheless concentrates on the disastrous effects of class and economics on love and morality. It begins with an account of a jilted bride, Dixie Morse, a workingclass girl who is obsessed with living in a model bungalow after her marriage. The novel ends almost precisely where it begins; what happens in between is a humorous, fanciful, and highly satirical flashback of sorts, explaining, in a roundabout way, what brought about the jilting. In the process, "upper-middle-" and "lower-working" class values alike fall prey to Spark's scathing and witty critique.

A convert to Roman Catholicism, Muriel Spark is...
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