They're in revolt against an autocracy that denies them individual freedom in the name of fossilised abstractions: Obedience, Team Spirit, Tradition, Duty. "When do we live?" Mick Travis asks. "That's what I want to know." They first start to live by celebrating erotic freedom (Mick's affair with a local waitress, Wallace's romance with a junior boy), and finally erupt in furious, orgasmic liberation on Founders Day.

guardian reading:

This final transition from fantasy to reality suggests that the revolution is doomed to failure, but a failure that's also a warning.