46. John Osborne. Look Back in Anger

Jon Osborne was born in London of working class parents. His father died when he was 12. He left school very early and worked as a journalist.He worked as an actor and then as a playwright. 1955 he wrote Look Back in Anger (26 years old). The play was performed in 1956 and had a great success.

Look Back in Anger

The dramatic structure of the play is quite conventional and seems to follow the traditional pattern:Exposition (of the action);Development (the arriving of an outsider develops and complicates the situation);Resolution (the outsider leaves. Reconciliation of the couple).There is also a reference to Elizabethan theatre (comedy of situation): ridiculous and incongruous situations, a heaping up of mistakes, plots within plots, unexpected meetings. But the setting, the language and the themes break with the tradition of British drama.

The structure of the play

The action is a closed circle divided into 3 acts: Act 1 Exposition: Jimmy is living with Alison (who is pregnant but hasn’t told him) and Cliff. Act 2 Development: Alison, influenced by her friend Helena, leaves Jimmy. Act 3 Resolution: Jimmy is living with Helena and Cliff. Alison (who has lost her child) comes back to her husband.

The play

The action is divided into 2 acts: Act 1 Scene 1: (Sunday) Jimmy is living with Alison and a friend, Cliff. Jimmy is drinking tea, Cliff is reading newspapers, Alison is ironing. Alison is pregnant and when she has found the courage to tell her husband, they are interrupted by a telephone call. It’s Alison’s friend Helena who’s going to visit her. Scene 2: (Two weeks later. Another Sunday evening)

Alison is getting ready to go out with Helena. Jimmy gets furious and begins a melodramatic and touching monologue about his life and his father’s death. Scene 3: (the day after) Colonel Redfern comes to bring his daughter home. He complaints about the past that is gone. Alison leaves and Helena stays. Act 2 Scene 1 : (Several months later – A Sunday evening) The same scene as in act 1 but this time Helena is ironing. The three start to sing a song and dance. The gag introduces the final ending. Alison comes back. Scene 2 : (A few minutes later) Helena feels guilty for Alison’s miscarriage. She understands she doesn’t love Jimmy and leaves him. Jimmy’s monologue on life and love.And they pity themselves for being in a “cruel” world “full of steel traps lying about everywhere”. They don’t solve their problems, but are still searching a way of living together.

Language

Osborne avoided both the conventional upper-class diction and the dystant style of verse drama. His language is immediate, genuine, taken from real life full of slang and colloquialisms. It reflects the characters’ social background (working-classes characters or upper classes characters)

Humour

There is not just linguistic humour but also comedy of situation: reference to Shakespeare Comedy of Errors. Gags between the male characters who have formed a comic duo.

The setting

The setting shows domestic scenes, with stress on the banality of life (kitchen sink drama vs. fashionable settings). Identical settings in Act 1 and Act 3 and identical actions except for the substitution of the female character (a closed-circle technique).

Time dimension

The symmetry of the play is emphasized by the three acts set on Sunday. Afternoon/evening: the week and the day is almost finished. The use of time reflects the dullness and repetitivity of everyday routine.

Characters

Jimmy Porter is the anti-hero: Anti-hero. A man of contradictions. His complexities, inner conflicts, violent speech have become a myth for the young generation.His protest is confused and indiscriminate. Motionless: he protests but doesn’t do anything to change the situation. Alienation and Loneliness. Anger for his life experience: he saw his father dying. At the end he understands the meaning of pity for another person, his wife: he’s tender with her: “Don’t. Please dont’… I can’t (…) you’re a very beautiful squirrel.”

Alison the anti-heroine: Upper class girl who left her privileges. Sick and tired of the situation. “I can’t think what it was to feel young, really young”. Criticized by Jimmy because she doesn’t express her feelings: “Oh, my dear wife, you’ve got so much to learn. If only something … something would happen to you and wake you out of your beauty sleep. If you could have a child and it would die (…) she hasn’t her own kind of passion. She has the passion of a python. She just devours me whole every time”. Feels lonely. (to Helena) “I was on my own before” . Influenced by Helena: “You’ve got to fight him. Fight, or get out. Otherwise he will kill you”. “All I want is a little peace”. Anti-heroine:“I’m a conventional girl”. Finally she takes a decision by herself, she comes back and cries out her pain to her husband

Cliff: Forms a comic duo with Jimmy. Cliff is the stooge (besúgó).

Calm and apathetic: Helena “And all the time you just sit there, and do nothing!”. Cliff “That’s right I just sit here”. At the end of the play he decides to leave and do something: have his own family.

Helena Charles: Upper class like Alison but can’t share Jimmy’s world, except for a short period. To Cliff “I don’t understand him, you or any of it. All I know is that none of you seems to know how to behave in a decent, civilised way”. Active “I had to do something, dear” vs passive Jimmy who protests but doesn’t do anything to change things. She betrays her friend but she feels guilty: “Suddenly I see what I have really known all along. That you can’t be happy when what you’re doing is wrong or is hurting someone else. I can’t take part in… in all this suffering. I can’t!”

Colonal Redfern

Together with Jimmy he represents the contradictions of post-war England: generation gap.

Themes and the context

Decline of patriarchal families (generation gap): a new generation was agnostic (szabadgondolkosó), politically committed, sexually promiscuous). Lack of communication between people (war of sexes). The class war (Social Reforms didn’t change the discrepancy between classes: the new generation was better educated but with few possibilities of success).