Abstract
This chapter argues that through its segues and soundscape, Quadrophenia represents clashes between two historical moments, the early sixties and the early seventies. If the ending of Quadrophenia is notoriously ambiguous in its flirtation with suicide and its unanswered questions about Jimmy’s future, it may be that it is more productive to linger with the impasses that Quadrophenia dramatizes. Quadrophenia’s representation of Jimmy’s fraught relationship to Mod subculture, class, masculinity, sex, work, and the existential angst of the teenager, creates a dead-end for him in terms of one kind of narrative, the narrative of development, but opens up other possibilities that are enacted through Quadrophenia’s sometimes jarring leaps and transitions across space and time, its anachronisms, its nostalgia, its orientation toward a different kind of future.
One of the most significant, but also one of the most painful psychical achievements of the pubertal period is…detachment from parental authority, a process that alone makes possible the opposition, which is so important for the progress of civilization, between the new generation and the old. (Sigmund Freud ) 1
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Catterall, Ali and Simon Wells . Your Face Here: British Cult Movies Since the Sixties. London: Fourth Estate, 2001.
Feldman, Christine Jacqueline. We are the Mods: A Transnational History of a Youth Subculture. New York: Peter Lang, 2009.
Sigmund Freud, On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works, eds. Angela Richards, trans. James Strachey, Penguin Freud Library Volume 7. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.
Gilbert, Geoff. Before Modernism Was: Modern History and the Constituency of Writing London: Palgrave, 2004.
Glynn, Stephen. Quadrophenia. New York: Wallflower Press, 2014.
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen and Co, Ltd., 1979.
Moretti, Franco. The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. Trans, Albert Sbraglia. London: Verso, 2000 (1987).
O’Casey. Matt. (director) Quadrophenia: Can you see the Real Me? BBC Four documentary, 2012.
Ratliff, Ben. Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty. New York: Picador, 2016.
Roddam, Franc. Quadrophenia. Criterion Collection DVD, booklet.
Savage, Jon. Interview with Pete Townshend Mojo, December 2011 “Talkin’ About My Generation” pp. 76–83.
Townshend, Pete. Liner Notes to Quadrophenia, Quadrophenia, Fabulous Music Ltd, 1973.
Townshend, Pete. Who I am. London: HarperCollins, 2012.
Trotter, David. The English Novel in History, 1895–1920. London: Routledge, 1993.
Unterberger, Richie. Won’t Get Fooled Again : The Who from Lifehouse to Quadrophenia. London: Jawbone Press, 2011.
The Who, Quadrophenia. Track Records, 1973.
Wood, James. “The Kids are Alright” The Guardian, 30 May 2009 www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/30/quadrophenia-seminal-album-who.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thurschwell, P. (2018). “You Were Under the Impression, that When You Were Walking Forwards, that You’d End up Further Onwards, but Things Ain’t Quite that Simple”: Time Travelling and Quadrophenia’s Segues. In: Thurschwell, P. (eds) Quadrophenia and Mod(ern) Culture. Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64753-1_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64753-1_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64752-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64753-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)