ABSTRACT
The habit of studying fantastic fiction apart from mimetic fiction has prevented Steerpike, Mervyn Peake’s unique villain, from being read as an angry young man in the context of the eponymous British movement. This chapter argues that in his singular fantasy novels—Titus Groan (1946, Gormenghast (1950), and Titus Alone (1959)–—Peake participates of the same zeitgeist as the contemporary Angry Young Men. He even anticipates their response to the crisis of patriarchal authority in 1950s Britain with the rebellious Steerpike and the no less rebellious hero Titus Groan. Whereas Steerpike’s anger against classism seems justified, which is why readers often sympathise with him, the anger of privileged Titus is problematic. He may reject his position as Gormenghast’s Earl, but Titus’s anti-patriarchal rebellion is, essentially, as selfish and anti-social as Steerpike’s villainy.
