"Little Englander" : Fawlty Towers - A textual analysis of nationalistic ideology

Abstract

It is often agreed upon that television texts have provided an image of “Britishness” that constructs an image of the nation state. This in turn leads to the representation of community in British sitcoms where one example is Fawlty Towers. Here we have a small community as a mini-construction of Britain complete with its ‘strengths’ and ‘traditions’. This paper then, will elaborate through the analysis of narrative developments, thematic concerns and visual and linguistic analysis of the characters, just how Fawlty Towers showed this notion put into practice. Considering what is considered the essence of ‘Britain’ in a textual example of a sitcom, it investigates how this ideological notion is applied within the textual narrative. This includes which characters are deemed worthy of inclusion in this mini-Britain, and which are not, and which ideological beliefs inform the notion of ‘Britishness’.