Modern London Restaurant Labour as a Metaphor of a Worldwide Dehumanization of the Working Class in Arnold Wesker’s The Kitchen

Abstract

Abstract: This paper highlights the hardships and questions the dehumanization and alienation of the working class in kitchen work in London restaurant settings, whereby an industrial and capitalistic world requires massive production, intensive and extensive services to cater for the needs of a growing modern society in terms of food and drink supply. The work advocates the humanistic yearning of the playwright Arnold Wesker through his play The Kitchen in a modern world, victim of commercialism and robotization of the workforce. Conducted with Marxist and psychoanalytic literary perspectives, the study has come to the finding that kitchen work in London restaurant settings, stands as a major threat to human welfare because of denying the working class society of their human qualities and moral values of acceptance, respect, care, charity, compassion, cooperation, forgiveness, generosity and love due to the pressure and the stress of the kitchen load of work in big modern restaurants. Consequently, the study denounces the exploitation of the working classes across the world and contributes to the promotion of their social welfare and psychological fulfilment.

Keywords

• working class
• restaurant work
• dehumanization
• moral values
• social welfare