“England versus England” was written by Doris Lessing. The main character is a young man named Charlie, who left his native small village in order to get education in Oxford. Charlie is an elder son in his family and his father is an old miner who has been a union secretary and now is a chairman, and has spent his working life as miners' representative. They are the only family in the village that has its own library with real books and all the members of the family have to make some sacrifice to give Charlie an opportunity to get such good education. And Charlie sees and appreciates it, he doesn’t stay indifferent and feels that he owes them all very much. His younger brother already works and have his own money, he even going to marry next year, and can’t do it now only because Charlie has to graduate college. The sister in the office has wanted to be a schoolteacher, but at the moment of decision all the extra money of the family has been needed for Charlie. His father can work out of mine on surface but he still does it because it’s better paid. His mother works all the time without rest and when she wants to change environment she goes to the nearest town to work at sweets factory. And Charlie doesn’t know how to pay them back. So feels himself overresponsible to pass the coming exams properly and nervous about it badly. But even when he finishes studying who can he become? Charlie is afraid of being useless as a bureaucrat or talentless teacher or somebody else of such sort, whereas his family is serious.
And he is not the only young man who feels like this. There even was an article printed in a newspaper, telling that young men from working-class and lower-middle-class families on scholarships are particularly vulnerable. For them, the gaining of a degree is obviously critical. In addition they are under the continuous tension of adapting themselves to middle-class mores that are foreign to them. They are victims of standards, breaking between habitual life and new one, brought by education.