SIDEKICKS AND SOCIETY: A study of the generational evolution of values in UK's Society through minor characters in popular English literature

Using an etic lens, this study deals with identifying and deliberating upon culture in the United Kingdom as represented in the literary works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Roald Dahl and JK Rowling. We posit that literature is an art form that invariably represents the zeitgeist, the beliefs and the biases of the society the author inhabited (either directly through social commentary or indirectly through allegory and subtext). This cultural paradigm changes over time as societies evolve. Building upon our prior work, this study looks at evaluating the culture of the UK, using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions of Power Distance and Masculinity, and looking specifically at the characters in the works of these authors. Arguably, minor characters, that are generally used for world-building, are the ones that better represent the society contemporary to the author, bespoke for the audience. We conducted four online workshops with Indian participants well-versed with the chosen texts. Through these workshops we analyzed minor characters for the Power Distance and Masculinity they reflect. Furthermore, even more meta discussions about societies and characters unfolded, giving us a rich tapestry of the cultural evolution of the United Kingdom's society. We found that the sets of characters in the fictional universes of the stories had grown to become more diverse and the authors had grown more bold with their criticisms of society over time. This paper also lays the groundwork for future culture studies that look into literature of a society and builds a platform for a deeper and more insightful understanding of persona building and design fiction.