LOOK BACK IN ANGER
BY JOHN OSBORNE
Subject: Literature-in-English
Theme: Novel
Topic: Look Back in Anger
Sub Topic:
Date: dd/mm/yyyy
Class: S.S 3
Average Age: 13 years and above
Duration: 35 Minutes
No of Learners: 40
Background of the Playwright
John Osborne, born on 12th Dec 1929 in Fulham, London; is an English Playwright, actor and screenwriter and he is known for being an intense critic with his prose works towards established social and political norms {practices}. Much of his childhood was spent near poverty and he su ffered from frequent extended illness. His father’s death from tuberculosis in 1941 deeply affected him. He att ended state schools unt il he was twelve, got a scholarship to att end St Michael’s College {a minor private school} in Barnstaple, Devon; but got expelled at age sixteen. His playwriting career began while he was still an actor when he started his acting career. Before the production of “Look Back in Anger” that made him an overnight success, he had already written five plays with co-authors.His first play that was written by him alone is Look Back in Anger, it was staged in 1956 and it’s success transformed the English theatre. Af ter being active for forty years on stage, he died at the age of 65 in Dec 24th of complications related to diabetes and heart failure.
Background of the Play
The play is autobiographical since it is based on John Osborne’s Life {his unhappy marriage as well as well as witnessing the death a loved one, his father}.This play was the first well-known example of “Kitchen Sink drama”{a kind of play that digs deeper into the emotional and domest ic life of ordinary people.
The two symbolic elements in the play are—The Angry Young man and the Kitchen Sink drama- - of which Jimmy Porter symbolizes the Angry Young Man.
The Cultural aspect of the play shows the rise and fall of the British empire; the two World Wars that devastated the British economy, giving rise to United States as the new World power, military and politically. Jimmy Porter represents a generation that had nostalgia {bi tt er-sweet yearnings} for this past glory. He symbolizes the worthy causes of the past even while he mocks those who can’t understand why thetimes have changed as much as they have.
Summarily, the play outlines Jimmy’s angry outbursts, some of which are directed against British middle class complacency in the post World War, and against the female characters {a very notable feature of Osborne’s uneasiness with women} including his mother.
Jimmy Porter is a typical example of a set of people who are frustrated and angry at the depressing circumstances of Post-War Britain especially the generation of young men who have been expecting to leave behind their origin of lower class through the means of higher education.
Throughout the play, Jimmy complains violently against politics, social institutions and religion. He feels betrayed by the previous generation because his own generation is experiencing disappointment of World War II. However rather than exhaustion, he looks for enthusiasm as he had a father who believed that there were causes good enough to fight for and collective actions worthy of individual support.
Jimmy’s rage and anger is all
• an expression of bott led-up emotions and his need for life in a world that has become uninteresting and listless.
• His anger is a symbol of the political and social ills of British culture.
• His anger is destructive to those around him This play is connected to understanding British life in the twent ieth century as well as an important piece of write-up in the British seting.
Setting of the play
The play takes place in the Porters’ one-room atic apartment located in the Midlands of EnglandThe Significance of the seting implies that their home and life is economically downscale.
Its furniture is “simple and rather old” including two “shabby” armchairs. Books crowd the chairs and chest of drawers, indicat ing that Jimmy Porter though of working class background, is educated in contrast to virtually all working class characters in the play.
The fact that on Sundays he reads the “only two posh papers” which are scattered around the room also indicates his interest in the larger world, though he complains that the London-base book reviews are all round the same. The ironing board symbolizes Alison’s unfortunate status in the marriage and her domestic subordination of women in the 1950’s, though her parents are more middle-class than her husband’s.
Plot-Account of the Play
The play highlights the life of a character "Jimmy Porter", who in rage indeed looked back in anger at an insensitive world and time, at a generation who didn’t part icipate in World War II and disappointed in the world it created.It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but hostile young man of the working class social status who despite having a university education still remains within his social class as he believes he deserves bett er. Generally, his anger is as a result of his low status in life and the upper-middle-class life and their values.
Jimmy Porter is a loud o ffensive/annoying man who happens to be rude and verbally abusive to his wife, Alison. Alison comes from an upper class family that Jimmy so hates and severely scolds or rebukes her for her lack of feelings and being too reserved. Jimmy is a university graduate yet works with a partner Cliff Lewis as a street vendor operating a candle stall.
He lives with Jimmy and Alison and is close friends with both. When Jimmy pushes Alison while she’s at the ironing board, she gets burned.
Alison visits her doctor where it was revealed that she’s pregnant. She asks him if it is too late to late to do something about it and the doctor tells her never to mention such an idea. When Jimmy leaves for work, Alison con fides in Cliff that she’s pregnant. She is frightened of Jimmy’s react ion to the news and has not told him. Jimmy is visited by his childhood nanny, Mrs Tanner, whom Jimmy loves and calls “Mom”. Alison tries to tell Jimmy of the pregnancy but is frustrated when Jimmy insults her for being cool towards Mrs Tanner.
Alison tells Jimmy that her actress friend- Helena Charles is coming to stay at the flat. Jimmy hates Helena. In his anger, he curses Alison for her lack of feelings, and wishes that she would have a child and that the child would die so that she could feel pains to break that lack of feelings.
Helena arrives, and when she’s had enough of Jimmy’s bitterness towards Alison, she convinces Alison to allow her {Helena} call Alison’s father {Colonel Redfern} to take her to the family home and leave Jimmy. Jimmy gets word that his nanny has had a stroke. Jimmy begs Alison to come with him to see her but Alison goes with Helena to church. Jimmy visits his nanny in the hospital and is convinced she’s dying. Before Jimmy returns, Alison father arrives and leaves with Alison. Helena stays in the flat. Jimmy returns and Helena tells Jimmy that Alison is going to have a baby. Jimmy says he does not care. When he calls Helena an evil-minded virgin, she slaps him. Then they kiss and make love, locking Cliff from the flat. Jimmy and Helena live for a while in the flat, obviously happy, with Cliff; while Alison stays at her family home waiting to give birth. Cliff begins feeling uncomfortable, having been close to Alison but not Helena.
At the candy stall, Cliff tells Jimmy that he has decided to leave the apartment. He wants something better. Jimmy has decided to get out of the candy business too. Cliff says good-bye to Jimmy at the train station and Jimmy tells him he is worth more to him then a dozen Helenas. Jimmy and Helena enter a train station pub where they find Alison seated at a table alone. Jimmy leaves and Alison tells Helena she lost her child in Pregnancy. Helena tells Alison that she should be angry with her for what she has done. Helena returns to the flat and tells Jimmy she’s leaving him because her sense noof morality --right and wrong—has not diminished and that she knows she must leave.
Jimmy returns to the train stat ion and finds Alison waiting to return home. When Helena leaves, Jimmy a tt empts to once again become angry but Alison tells him she has now gone through the emotional and physical su ffering that he has always wanted her to feel. He realizes that she has su ffered greatly and has become like him, this he becomes softer and more tender towards her.
As the play ends, they reconcile, embracing each other and once again playing their imaginary game of bear and squirrel –“Poor squirrels”, he says to Alison, and she responds, “poor, poor, bears”.
THEMES IN THE PLAY
The following are the fundamental ideas/messages the writer passes across in the play.Class and Education:
This theme points out the fact that although Jimmy Porter is from the working-class background {Lower class}, he has acquired university education.
Despite his university education, he still finds himself running a candy stall, thus his education doesn’t st ill get him into the upper class.
His wife Alison comes from the upper class background totally different from Jimmy’s. They both represent the struggle between the classes, and how these two sectors of the society fail to blend {find it dificult to blend}. Though Alison and Jimmy may have reconciled in the end, the divisions between them run too deep to ever heal.
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Suffering and anger VS Complacency:
While su ffering and anger is associated with the lower class in the play, Complacency is associated with the upper class. Jimmy believes that the lower class people like him who have su ffered, have a better understanding of the world which the upper class people. We see where he chast ises Alison strongly for her lack of feelings and inability to relate to his feeling of su ffering; he suggests that her lack of feelings makes her less of a human. Alison points out that Jimmy’s su ffering should not be taken from as he would lost without it, hence his suffering and anger is an important part of his identity.In the end, Alison loses her child and therefore experiences the su ffering that Jimmy thinks she has been lacking. The play therefore suggests that Jimmy’s anger is an expression of his social dissatisfact ion and su ffering but not an answer to his problem.
Muddled gender roles:
There are a number of mixed -up gender roles in the play. Several characters defy {do not conform to} social rules and expectations. For instance, Alison disobeys her parents to marry Jimmy. Helena slaps Jimmy at the beginning of their a ffair and later walks out on him. Cliffan unmarried man, lives with a married couple flirts with Alison, yet Jimmy doesn’t particularly mind. This act ions therefore shows the obvious realities of the present day British society.
Alienation and Loneliness:
This is an important theme in the play. Jimmy the main character represents the overeducated, yet underemployed worker. He is unable to blend into the upper class. He is a social rebel {one who does not conform to societal expectations and rules}. He has tried his hands on many other occupation but failed to stick to any one of them. He is unsatisfied with his wife because the society has not treated him well. He feels he is unwanted by the society because he has been unable to secure a suitable career. Jimmy Porter feels cut-off from the sector of the upper class of the British society which has shut out of the most lucrative jobs because of his class. Though educated, Jimmy’s education doesn’t mean much to the British Establishment, he feels cut-off from his wife Alison whose father is a colonel and whose brother is a member of the parliament. It is therefore seen noted that part of Jimmy’s alienation comes from his atitude, and not his socioeconomic posit ion. Thus, he might have connected well with people if he had treated them with respect.Other themes includes: Anger and hatred, ident ity crisis, loss of childhood, class confl ict, etc.
STYLES IN THE PLAY
The following are the techniques/ways through which the writer presents his work.• Imagery: Images of sound used majorly in the play includes:
the jazz trumpet and church bells.
The church bells is a reminder of the power of the established church and how it doesn’t care and how it doesn’t care about their domest ic peace as it invades their small living space. With the jazz trumpet represents Jimmy’s presence dominating the stage even when he’s not there.
• Language: The use of language by the writer is in the realistic tradition.
Through the characters speech and rhythm, their social class can be identified.
For example, Jimmy shouts and swears most of thetime he opens his mouth to talk. His language is not polite. He is extremely articulate {able to speak clearly and effectively}.
Alison is proper in her speech, nonjudgmental and non-commi ttal. Helena is very proper and conventional and so is her speech. Colonel Redfern is calm and reflect ive. Cliff is humble and his Welsh accent is clearly understood from his speech.
Kitchen-Sink drama:
The use of kitchen-sink drama as seen in the play is about the raw emot ions and living condit ions of ordinary people; their domestic social relations.“Look back in anger” was able to comment on a range of domest ic social problems of it’s period of creation.
• Use of symbols: which includes
>> Newspapers: The presence of newspapers litt ered in the apartment is a symbol of Jimmy’s educat ion. It is his own way of him mimicking the habits of the upper-class, university-educated elite. He also uses it as a way to beli tt le the intelligence of Alison and Cliff in order for him to feel smarter and more worthwhile.
>> Ironing: The unending ironing from Alison shows the kind of routine with which Jimmy is fed up with. It is also a symbol of Jimmy’s boredom. Ironically also, even af ter Helena replaced Alison for a short while in the play, she st ill carries out the act of ironing clothes like Alison which can be interpreted to mean that there is no change in Jimmy’s life. Thus, we hear Jimmy complain in the play “always the same ritual; drinking, reading the papers, ironing.
EXAMINING THE MAJOR CHARACTERS AND THEIR ROLES IN THE PLAY.
The following are the fict ional characters and their roles in the play.Jimmy Porter:
He is a rude, loud, annoying and verbally abusive young man that is twenty-five years of age.
His Roles:
• He comes from the working class background though, but he is his highly intelligent and educated as a university graduate.
• Jimmy is frustrated because despite his educat ion, his social class status st ill doesn’t change as he expects.
• Although Jimmy has graduated from a university without prest ige, he works with Cliff as the owner of their candy stall. He genuinely likes Cliff and they share the same one- room atic apartment though he sometimes cruelly insults Cli ff in the play.
• He is angry and aggressive at the British social, polit ical, religious inst itutions and anything that has to do with upper class manners and values. {those “born” into power and privilege}. His anger, an expression of not being satisfied socially but unfortunately not an answer to his problem.
• Meanwhile, he seeks comfort and blows resistance through the symbolic Jazz trumpet.
• His hatred for upper class, makes him physically and verbally abusive to his wife Alison Porter. He believes that by bullying her, he is taking revenge on the social class he intensely dislikes.
• Jimmy is easily broken emotional thus frail; because according to him, he got exposed to death, loneliness and pain at a very tender of ten by watching his father die, thus he claims he knows what it is like to lose someone. However, he thinks Alison does not know the feeling of loss or helplessness. He therefore wishes she would have a child and lose it so she could experience the feeling of loss.
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Alison Porter:
She is Jimmy’s wife, tall, slim and dark. She is from the solid upper-middle-class Establishment and they have been married for three years.Her Roles:
• Her father served as Colonel in the Colonial Service, her brother a tt ended the Sandhurst University {a Royal military academy} and is a member of the parliament and her family lived very comfortably in Indiatill the year 1947.• She rebelliously married Jimmy against her parents consent and rule of her social class, however her upbringing is responsible for her complacency and lack of feelings that Jimmy complains about and it results to his attacks towards her.
• Her silence towards Jimmy’s emotional and verbal abuse is ato listen to Jimmy when he weapon she uses to save herself from harassments. She seems not to listen to him when he wants her to say something.
• Her su ffering changes her and causes her to be able to relate to Jimmy’s su ffering and pain.
• She is friendly and open with Cliff but not sexually a tt racted. And when Helena convinces her to leave for parents house she does not hesitate.
• She eventually reconciles with Jimmy after loosing her pregnancy, to show him that she also has gone through great pain and su ffering.
Helena Charles:
She is the best friend of Alison Porter who calls to come over for a working visit {a play at the local theatre}Her Roles
• She’s a member of the upper class as such detests her. Jimmy sees her as a member of the Establishment {those born into power and privilege}.
• She represents the middle class that st icks to it’s custom/tradit ion.
• Even though she genuinely feels concern about Alison’s constant heated dispute with her husband when she calls Alison’s father to come pick her home, it appears she schemed Alison out of the picture.
• She seduces Jimmy and replaced Alison in the house.
• She has a strong sense of morality because when Alison returns, and she realizes that her a ffair with Jimmy is wrong, her sense of morality forces her to leave. Thus, she is seen as the Moral compass of the play.
Cliff Lewis:
He is a warm, funny and loving friend to both Jimmy and Alison, also from the background of the working class.His Roles:
• He shares same atic apartment with the Porters except that his own bedroom is across the hallway.
• He shares an a ffect ionate physical relationship with Alison which seems strange but without sexual a tt ract ion.
• Jimmy constantly talks down on him his low intelligence.
• He is Jimmy’s partner in the candy stall business.
• Living with the couple enables him to keep them together
• Rather than remain in Jimmy’s apartment, he eventually decides to leave to pursue his own life.
Colonel Redfern:
He is a character that is reserved, in his late sixt ies and handsome. Haven served for forty years as a strict and dedicated soldier, he eventually has become kind and gentle.His Roles:
• He is the father of Alison, and served in the British army in India as a Colonel {When India was st ill a colony in England}.
He symbolizes the softening of the British Character which implies that the British culture and character is resigned and withdrawn in this new American age.
• Though he doesn’t regard Jimmy, there some things he still admires in him and agrees with him in some instances like when he says that “the Colonel is stuck in the past version of England”.
He is critical of Jimmy and Alison’s relationship but accepts that he is to blame in many of their problems for interfering in their a ffairs.
• His world ended with India gaining independence. He is a reasonable man, though confused and bewildered by the Post World War II England.
• He feels worried with everything happening to his daughter and doesn’t hesitate to help his daughter Alison and does not a ttempt to control her against her wish.
• He represents the values and beliefs of another period, atime of British Empire.
Thus his values are those of honor, duty, and loyalty to one’s class and to ones culture.
ANALYSIS OF THE MINOR CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY
Minor Characters are otherwise known as supportive characters in the play.Some of these minor characters and their roles are as follows:
Mrs. Tanner:
• She is the mother of Hugh Tanner whom Jimmy loves.
• She helped set Jimmy up with his candy stall.
• Alison believes that Jimmy’s love for her is because she’s ignorant and from the same social class background with Jimmy, and Jimmy is o ffended that Alison only sees Mrs. Tanner in terms of her social class and not as a person.
• It is Jimmy who goes to visit and care for her in the hospital when he learns that she’s down with stroke.
Alison’s Mother:
• She refuses to give her consent to the marriage between Jimmy and Alison. This is as a result of the protect ive love she has for Alison.• With her disapproval, she goes great lengths to prevent it and her Husband admits that she went too far in her act ions.
Hugh Tanner:
• He is friends with Jimmy Porter, and the one who accommodated the Porters in their first few months of marriage.
• He conspires with Jimmy in going on “food raid” against Alison Porter’s Upper class friends at fancy parties.
• In other to pursue his dream of writing a novel, he leaves for China and this act ion of his leaves Jimmy feeling betrayed. Thus, Jimmy’s anger towards Hugh Tanner stems from the fact that he abandons his sick mother as well as the love he has for his country.
Webster:
• He is the friend of Alison Porter and the only one whom Jimmy sees to have any value.
• He plays the Banjo {a musical instrument}.
• Jimmy thinks he is gay.
Nigel:
• He is the brother to Alison Porter.• He is the one Alison wished she has reached out to in the first few months of dificulty in her marriage because she believes he would have been loving and a ffect ionate to her.
• He is a member of the Parliament, thus a politician.
Miss Drury:
• She’s the Landlady of the Porters apartment.• Jimmy thinks she’s a thief as a result of his negative perception towards people who are rich.
• Alison thinks she will kick them out of the apartment because of their being noisy and rowdy with the trumpet.