John Osborne

Tra l'esperienza creativa di Pete Townshend con la sua band The Who e il breve, ma intenso exploit drammaturgico di Sarah Kane intercorrono quasi trent'anni e un'intera generazione di cambiamenti sociali, economici, culturali. A parte la provenienza londinese (lui di Chiswick, zona Ovest della città, lei di Brentwood, comune orientale della grande area metropolitana di Londra), non mostrano avere evidenti tratti in comune. Anche la critica non sembra avere mai posto la produzione dei due autori a confronto, eppure una serie di suggestioni nella lettura di pièce della Kane come Dannati e Psicosi delle 4.48 mi hanno portato immediatamente alla mente stralci e immagini provenienti dalla produzione musicale di Townshend & co. , in particolar modo dai due concept album della band, Tommy (1969) e Quadrophenia (1973). Assecondando queste suggestioni, ho riscontrato un certa corrispondenza tra queste opere, anche se formalmente espressioni artistiche così diverse tra loro, ritracciando una comunanza di alcuni nuclei tematici, con una similare tendenza nella rappresentazione della violenza, della malattia mentale, dei traumi alla radice della poetica di Townshend e Kane.

This paper seeks to study the unforgettable character of Jimmy Porter in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956), arguing that he epitomizes the then-forgotten literary archetype of the Byronic hero, a point frequently overlooked in existing analyses. Through an in-depth examination of Porter’s complex persona and of the key moments and dynamics in the play, the paper draws parallels between him and some of the most significant Byronic heroes in literary history. In doing so, the paper aims to contribute a fresh perspective to the interpretation of this character, to show how John Osborne brought the riveting archetype back to life in a post-war context, and to enrich the broader discourse on Byronic heroes in 20th-century drama.

This paper examines the response of youths or the rising generation, to the socioeconomic and political factors that ceaselessly widen the gap between the elite and the ordinary people, especially the youth and which tend to force the youth to resort to violence as a means of making their point or calling attention to the neglected leaders of tomorrow. While Look Back in Anger represents the anger period, a notable era in English Drama, Irobi's play in English; Nwokedi, appears to suggest that the Nigerian youth seem to grope in a more devastating condition in a post-colonial Nigeria, where poor leadership has created all manner of socioeconomic and political tension. The youthful generation in both plays embodied in the characters, Jimmy and Nwokedi, respectively violently demonstrate their resentment against the ruling class ideology and the social order it promotes. Their resolve points strongly to a revolution that a positive change may only quell. The paper submits that youths should, along with their agitations for a better society, give no holiday to developing new ideas and visions on which their ambitions will thrive. Leaders on all fronts are also cautioned to realize the destructive effects of bad leadership and avert uprisings from an angry citizenry by living up to their mandates.

John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger is a perfect critique of the twentieth-century British society. John Osborne used a lot of symbolic language in his work. Every metaphor he uses has a meaning. Even the place he uses in his work has a meaning. Osborne tries to convey his message to his audience. The play’s setting is in a one-room flat in post-World War II England. The playwright chooses this kind of setting in order to show the character’s isolation from the  world .

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (1904) depicting the lives of lower, middle and upper class Russian people at the very beginning of the twentieth century reflects the clash that takes place between these quite different social communities. About forty years after the emancipation of the serfs, Russian nobility represented by Madame Ranevsky has lost its financial power; so that, the last symbol of the glorious past, in this case the cherry orchard, is to be bought by the newly arising middle class identified with Lopahin. During the harsh struggle between these two classes, the lower class resuming the old values is left behind just as the old man Firs is forgotten at the end of the play. The result is the dawn of a new era with its dramatic changes for everyone. Turning back to John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956), the theme of struggle within the society focuses on lower and middle classes. Despite his great love for his wife Alison, Jimmy cannot cope with his inner conflicts resulting from the inability to reconcile his lower class background with that upper middle class of his wife. Therefore his anger never seems to calm down. That is also why he wishes Alison's baby to die and has an intercourse with Alison's close friend Helena. While the middle class people are responsible for all evil in this life, Cliff contributes to that with his ignorance and idleness sitting in the room. For Jimmy, all the desirable qualities and values are situated in the working class. Jimmy's anger stemming from his obsession in the past and the responsibility he carries in himself to make up for the mistakes of the previous generations prevent him from looking forward. However, Alison's return at the end of the play and the beginning of the love game between the couple once again shows that there is still hope for the future.

This thesis is an attempt to portray the birth of British modern drama and the most important figures breaking its new ground; more to the point, to shed light on the second generation of British dramatists breaking what G.B. Shaw used to call ‘middle-class morality’. The focal point here is fixed on Stephen Poliakoff, one of the distinctive dramatists in contemporary British theatre, his work and the dramatic tinge he adds to the new drama.

This paper analyses Look Back in Anger (1956)-a play written in the style of social realism by English dramatist John Osborne-from the point of view of popular culture. Popular culture is seen here as a number of material and non-material aspects of everyday life in the first half of the twentieth century. The notion of popular culture is largely taken from John Fiske (2001), who maintains that the instruments of everyday life are crucial for the development of popular culture. The analysis is divided into three sections: the first one deals with anger as a popular feeling of the 1950s, which is also the dominant mood in the play; the second one is concerned with popular industrial products, such as newspapers, the iron, toys for children, etc., which serve emotional rather than industrial, practical ends; the third one is devoted to the usage of certain popular elements as a means of communication with art, mostly with the aim of escaping from harsh reality or fighting against it. The final aim of the paper is to prove that popular culture plays one of the leading roles in the realism of this drama. popular culture, John Osborne, Look Back in Anger, anger, 1950s, modern, industrial products, art.

Imperialism, a political system in which colonies are ruled from an
empire center primarily for economic reasons, dates back to the fifteenth
century. In the eighteenth century, the need for raw materials that emerged
with the industrial revolution in European countries, especially Britain,
accelerated these countries' colonial activities. However, Britain began to lose its power as Germany made an industrial move, the Japanese Empire and the USA gained strength, and the outbreak of the Second World War, which deeply affected human history and world order. Within this scope,
The Entertainer (1957) may be regarded as one of the most explicit
example of his plays that includes all these aforementioned notions in a
play. Osborne combines many fundamental themes such as cultural
transformation, gender discrimination, racism, the concept of marriage and family, the generation gap, and the search for identity, but most
importantly, Britain’s decline in the 1950s through the metaphorical
decline of the British music hall in his work.

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The aim of this study is to discuss use of language, existential anguish and despair and man’s self-quest for identity demonstrate lack of meaning in life in characters in the Slight Ache. Choice and responsibility are two important factors for human life.

This paper examines the response of youths or the rising generation, to the socioeconomic and political factors that ceaselessly widen the gap between the elite and the ordinary people, especially the youth and which tend to force the youth to resort to violence as a means of making their point or calling attention to the neglected leaders of tomorrow. While Look Back in Anger represents the anger period, a notable era in English Drama, Irobi's play in English; Nwokedi, appears to suggest that the Nigerian youth seem to grope in a more devastating condition in a post-colonial Nigeria, where poor leadership has created all manner of socioeconomic and political tension. The youthful generation in both plays embodied in the characters, Jimmy and Nwokedi, respectively violently demonstrate their resentment against the ruling class ideology and the social order it promotes. Their resolve points strongly to a revolution that a positive change may only quell. The paper submits that youths should, along with their agitations for a better society, give no holiday to developing new ideas and visions on which their ambitions will thrive. Leaders on all fronts are also cautioned to realize the destructive effects of bad leadership and avert uprisings from an angry citizenry by living up to their mandates.

Being an intensely personal poet, Leonard Cohen, one of the most important and best known poets of Canada has tried to show the inner turmoil and existential crisis of a poetic mind caught in mechanized and violent society where dehumanization compels him to create an interior world of escape. He shows how man becomes confused, disoriented and dread because of the absurd condition of the world and also tries to precede existence before essence. His 'The Spice-Box of Earth' shows an attempt to escape this world by love and 'Flowers for Hitler' along with 'Parasites of Heaven' show his passive acceptance of existence before the violence of the outer world. Not only poetry but his novel 'Beautiful Losers' also shows his false hope of rebirth and renewed vision of life. His journey towards hope finds expression in 'The Energy of Slaves' and 'Death of a Lady's Man'. And finally his quest for peace culminates in 'Book of Mercy' and in later 'Book of Longing' as his journey from innocence to experience and in again to innocence is completed. But all these begin with his very first poetic collection 'Let Us Compare Mythologies' where he has made a comparison of Christian, Hebrew and Classical mythologies to show the isolation of an individual and his experience in a seemingly violent world and how he acts out of his freedom of choice to accept the absurd condition. Further more this volume marks the beginning of Cohen's utmost desire to flee from this world into his own creation, a world of escape which is nothing but philosophical suicide. So this paper makes an attempt to show how Cohen from the very beginning has taken stance to emphasize the very existence of the individual by accepting the absurd with resistance in order to attain a sense of innocence with his desired purified version and experience.

This paper examines the response of youths or the rising generation, to the socioeconomic and political factors that ceaselessly widen the gap between the elite and the ordinary people, especially the youth and which tend to force the youth to resort to violence as a means of making their point or calling attention to the neglected leaders of tomorrow. While Look Back in Anger represents the anger period, a notable era in English Drama, Irobi's play in English; Nwokedi, appears to suggest that the Nigerian youth seem to grope in a more devastating condition in a post-colonial Nigeria, where poor leadership has created all manner of socioeconomic and political tension. The youthful generation in both plays embodied in the characters, Jimmy and Nwokedi, respectively violently demonstrate their resentment against the ruling class ideology and the social order it promotes. Their resolve points strongly to a revolution that a positive change may only quell. The paper submits that youths should, along with their agitations for a better society, give no holiday to developing new ideas and visions on which their ambitions will thrive. Leaders on all fronts are also cautioned to realize the destructive effects of bad leadership and avert uprisings from an angry citizenry by living up to their mandates.

The Judicial system in Nigeria, from the local to the federal level, needs to experience radicalism because perverted justice is gradually becoming the new order of the day. Radicalism is one phenomenon that has remained prominent across ages because it continues to take one form or the other in shaping the realities prevalent in any given generation. A radical artist is an aggressive personality because he/she boils with a burning passion for bringing some degree of change to a given society. He/she employs the most viable means available to make this dream come true no matter what it takes. Due to the strong positions artists occupy in our society today, revolutionaries among them activate their role as social critics, commentators, and changers to speak the language of radicalism through art. In its unusual approach, this paper tends to evaluate the role of some of such artists in contemporary African society with emphasis on Nigeria. This qualitative study draws its framework from the radical theatre aesthetics embedded in creative masterpieces with the ideology of motivating contemporary African artists to join in the crusade of using the surest means in bringing the desired change to our immediate society. This study, therefore, limits its scope to Sam Ukala's Break a Boil as a revolutionary masterpiece, as it portrays the creative artist as one of the revolutionary artists of our time.

j.p. Let me explain if I can penetrate the mists of your radical squalor. Our furry friend Teddy is not déjàvu, as you, and a million other clockwork cunts, would have it. Very simply because he is not something which you have 'already seen'-literal translation from a forever foreign tongue. Thus, déjàvu. The meaning of which is quite simply a deluded sense of recall, a recherché experience which could not possibly have taken place and most certainly not privy to the likes of canting pillocks like yourself.

Abstract: John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger created history in England when it was first staged on 8 May 1956. It depicts the disillusionment and rebelliousness of post-war youth in Britain. The suffering hero Jimmy Porter is the representative of this generation with nowhere to go. Having lost the war against society he fights for a place of his own in domestic relationships and dominates the action of the play. Though “Look Back in Anger is the one- man play per excellence. ” 1 Helena Charles, the friend of Jimmy’s wife Alison, makes her presence felt in spite of his dominance in the play by her guts who stands up to Alison’s defense. Later she falls to Jimmy’s bait easily, becomes something like his mistress and then leaves him and thus paves the way for a reconciliation between the husband and the wife. This paper aims at studying Helena’s arrival and departure and how do they contribute to the reunion of the estranged couple.

Despite their different time periods and social, economic and political changes in the society, these three plays have anger, violence and alienation in common and so, the desire to convey these feelings to their audience yet in different forms.

• comparing and contrasting the works
• focusing particularly on contextual/historical background and theatrical/aesthetic features

John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger is a dramatic study of a strained marriage relationship. In it Jimmy Porter is the protagonist and Alison Porter, a retired Colonel's daughter, is the heroine. The actual action of the play is centered around Jimmy's relationship with her. Despite his dominance, his wife Alison Porter, is the most important supporting character on whom Jimmy inflicts pain by his tirades all the time until eventually she feels she can bear no more. Later on she leaves him in her pregnant state to seek peace. After the loss of the baby she comes back to him when both have lost faith in each other. So they will go back to their previous unhealthy relationship causing her to become deplorable again. My reading of Alison Porter is that she is a suffering person though some find Jimmy a sufferer. This paper aims at assessing her sufferings and the reasons behind them.

John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger created history in England when it was first staged on 8 May 1956. It depicts the disillusionment and rebelliousness of post-war youth in Britain. The suffering hero Jimmy Porter is the representative of this generation ...

The study of waiting and time, hope and none fulfilment of hope, came into literary limelight in literature particularly in the dramas of Samuel Beckett, the absurdist playwright and others like Albert Camus, Martin Esslin and Eugene Ionesco. The subject is most prominent in Samuel Beckett's seminal dramas-Waiting for Godot (1956) and End Game (1957). In these dramas waiting is presented as a static experience that generates the rise and fall of hope. It breeds frustration, alienation, faithlessness and depersonalization. The act of waiting as a critical feature of the human condition is the most significant and intense thematic engagement in Beckett's Waiting for Godot. The study notes that aside the circle of the absurd art in drama, the

Set in the English Midlands in the 1950s, Look Back in Anger follows the deteriorating marriage of upper class Alison and working class Jimmy Porter. Taking place in the confined surrounds of their attic flat, that they share with Jimmy's friend Cliff Lewis, the play focuses on the Jimmy's frustration and anger at a world that has trapped him a working class life despite being well educated. The play opens on what is a typical Sunday morning with Jimmy and Cliff reading the newspaper while Alison irons. Much of the first act sees angry tirades from Jimmy as he criticises the apathy of the upper classes. The tirades soon turn to Alison and her background as he taunts her to show more enthusiasm while accusing all women of wanting to destroy men. While trying to dispel the tension, Cliff attempts to cheer up Jimmy through play fighting which ends with the men falling on the ironing board and burning Alison on the arm with the iron. She screams at Jimmy to get out. Cliff helps Alison tend to her burn and she tell him that she is pregnant but is scared to tell Jimmy. Cliff comforts her and they kiss. Jimmy returns and does not acknowledge the intimacy between Cliff and Alison. Cliff goes to buy cigarettes and Jimmy and Alison share a tender moment of playing 'bear and squirrel'. When Cliff returns he tells Alison that her friend Helena, an upper class actress, in on the phone downstairs. When Alison returns she tells Jimmy that Helena is coming to stay. This causes Jimmy to explode in an angry tirade where he tells Alison he hopes she has a child that dies so she can understand true suffering like Jimmy experiences. The second act begins with Alison and Helena performing household tasks while Jimmy plays his trumpet off stage. Alison talks about her early days of marriage. She reveals to Helena that the main reason she thinks they got married was that her parents, particularly her mother, disapproved of the match and that was Jimmy's main reason to marry. When Jimmy and Cliff come into eat, Jimmy again flies into an angry tirade when he hears the girls plan on attending church. Helena attempts to reason with Jimmy which ends with Jimmy ranting at her about seeing someone die and that he knows more about life that she ever will from upper class life. When he leaves to use the telephone, Helena tell Alison that she has called Alison's father, Colonel Redfern, to come and rescue her. Alison does not protest. Jimmy returns with news that the woman who helped him set up the candy stall he runs and whom he cares for deeply is dying and wants Alison to join him in London to see her. Instead she goes to church leaving Jimmy alone. Colonel Redfern comes to collect Alison and he states that Alison's mother was too harsh on her judgement of Jimmy and his marriage to Alison. He supports Jimmy's views that Alison doesn't stand up for anything or show any enthusiasm. After a moment of hesitation, Alison leaves with her father, leaving Helena with a letter for Jimmy. Having seen Alison leave, Jimmy enters in a fury. He reads the letter and is frustrated with Alison's polite, neutral language. Helena tells him that Alison is pregnant which leads to an argument that ends with Helena slapping Jimmy. When he falls to the ground in despair, Helena kisses him passionately. Month later, similar to the opening scene, Jimmy, Cliff and Helena are in the lounge and Helena is ironing. When Helena leaves to clean Cliff's shirt, Cliff tells Jimmy that he is moving out. Helena re--enters and Cliff leaves to dry his shirt, Helena tells Jimmy she loves him and Jimmy asks her desperately never to leave him. Alison then appears looking ill and frail. Alison tells Helena that she is not angry and does not want to upset the new couple. When Alison reveals her miscarriage, Helena decides this a judgement on her relationship with Jimmy and decides to leave Jimmy. Jimmy responds in anger, accusing Helena of never having the capability of loving someone. Alison apologies to Jimmy and reveals the miscarriage and impact it has had on her. She claims that this experience has finally allowed her to understand the depth of emotion that Jimmy wanted to see from her. Unable to see her in such pain, Jimmy tries to comfort her with a game of 'bear and squirrel'.

" Angry Young Men " produced a body of arresting work that was grounded in the " kitchen sink " reality of working-class life, railed against the class-conscious British social order, and reflected the alienated, rebellious, and pessimistic mood of many in post-World War II Britain. Here are 10 of the most prominent figures in that cantankerous lot. The Angry Young Men were a new breed of intellectuals who were mostly of working class or of lower middle-class origin. Some had been educated at the postwar red-brick universities at the state's expense, though a few were from Oxford. They shared an outspoken irreverence for the British class system, its traditional network of pedigreed families, and the elitist Oxford and Cambridge universities. They showed an equally uninhibited disdain for the drabness of the postwar welfare state, and their writings frequently expressed raw anger and frustration as the postwar reforms failed to meet exalted aspirations for genuine change

Análisis del film "Look back in anger" ("Mirando hacia atrás con ira", Tony Richardson, 1959). Cuadernos de Jazz nº 121, Noviembre/Diciembre, 2010, pp. 40-45. [ISSN 1134-7457]

· Índice del nº 121: https://cuadernos.cuadernosdejazz.es/index.php/cdj/issue/view/138
· Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/10115/41208
· Artículo indexado en Google Scholar y en la base de datos de la Fundación Dialnet (Hemeroteca de artículos científicos hispanos de la Universidad de La Rioja).

The play, first produced at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in May i 956 by the English Stage Company, is concemed with a group of young people living in a tumble-down, squalid one room attic in the Midlands in the mid-1950's. The atmosphere of the opening setting is dark, dingy and rather miserable. The visual impact ofthe set, with its water tank disguised as a sturdy dining table, shabby old armchairs, gas stove, chest of drawers littered with clothing and books, light from a skylight, invites the audience directly to look into the world which is indeed very unpleasant but nonetheless realistic. At the same time, this sort of domestic setting demonstrates in an immediate and visual way that the play is dealing with the realities of life and the current social problems in a workiIıg-elass environment(l).

This essay contextualizes the complex and intriguing paintings of Belgian artist Michaël Borremans in relation to the underlying existentialist concepts which inspired the dramatists of the Theatre of the Absurd.  A number of comparisons are drawn between these ideas and selected works from the artist’s oeuvre to establish a philosophical and ideological link between the Theatre of the Absurd and the Borremansian universe.

This book is a compilation of articles written by academicians residing in India and abroad, on some major texts which are studied in the course of undergraduate syllabi of English studies. The articles are on: Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Jew of Malta, Look Back in Anger, Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, The Lagoon, The Fly, The Ox, Shooting an Elephant and Araby. Although the book is meant for students of undergraduate levels, researchers would also be benefitted from some of the topics of the articles.
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This essay carries out a brief and yet thorough analysis on the relationship between Epic Theatre (Piscator and Brecht, with references to Szondi's work) and British Drama (with particular reference to Shelagh Delaney, Edward Bond and Sarah Kane). It is possible to see an evolution in this relationship: from a complete adhesion to Brecht's principles to the creation of a very large gap with the German author. This study is in Italian but can be translated, if asked.

We can see the most obvious effect of Bertolt Brecht in changing about characteristic of theatre which start to adapting itself to new politics human concerns and problems in 1950s. He thought that the importance of emotional connection between stage and audience since the beginning of theatre tradition is an obstacle to objective sight to play on stage. To put distance his audiences from depicted events, Brecht used comedy that highly influenced by musicals and fairground performers, putting music and song in his plays which create alienation effect on them. By supporting of this technique, Bertolt Brecht try to bring in intellectual point of view to his audiences. In addition, he emphasized that we must separate feelings from our ideas to reach a pure point of view.

This article, at the outset, lays focus on the theme of alienation, internal conflict and hostility experienced by Jimmy Porter in John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger by examining how the character, Jimmy is furious with life, friends and his wife, alienating himself from the society, religion and women. It concludes, by stating that of all the modern dramatists, John Osborne has been gifted with the credit of dramatizing the insecurity and alienation felt by the younger generation by effectively picturing the loneliness of the central character Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger. What is generally held is that the drama, more than the other arts, is most directly influenced by the spirit of the age and the modern dramas are nothing but the cultural product of a new pattern of society that emerged in the wake of the World War – II, which reduced Britain from the position of a great imperial power to that of a second class power. This is evidently pointed out in the lines that follow: ‚In Hungary; the people rebelled against their Russian – imposed Government and Russia put down the revolt in a good old – fashioned imperialist way by sending in tanks, while the rest of the world looked on and did nothing. In the Mediterranean, the Egyptian Government announced that it was taking over the Suez Canal, up to then owned and

In my research, I will discuss the circumstances of England during the 1950s, and how did the Second World War mark a shift in the British culture, which in return, was caught into two; the old order and the vision in store for the future of the British society. Entering into the 1950s, and particularly when the Conservative Party won the 1951 election, their slogan "Set the People Free" signaled a shift and spurred drastic changes in culture. The British felt freer, more affluent, and eager to escape the rigidity of the past. They questioned and ridiculed the cultural conventions of before and during the war. Jazz, rock-n-roll, new movies, and television became known as the "mass culture" and were slowly accepted by the upper class.

The philosophy of existentialism is usually considered as one attached with negative notions of angst, gloom, hopelessness and despair. The works such as Camus' " The Outsider " and Kafka's " The Metamorphosis " present an indifferent world that is not really bothered with humane feelings and emotions. Even the protagonists are seen as full of absurdity that is projected around them and they more or less embody that absurdity. However, that is merely one single way of looking at the existential thought, a way that views human existence as futile and meaningless. There is an entirely new approach to study existentialism, which is full of positivity, potential, purpose and optimism. The fact that one is going to die sooner or later, and that one does not know how or when, must certainly make him/her a free being without doubt. This fact must clearly flash to his/her consciousness so as to make him/her truly alive, for now he/she has got all the power and there is no superior power that controls his/her actions. That is perhaps what Sartre meant, in his 'The Aftermath of War', when clearly points out, " Never were we freer than under the German Occupation. " That is precisely the beauty of the philosophy of existentialism that one is rendered entirely free to choose one's actions. Existentialism cannot be seen as just another fashion or historical curiosity, because it has something important to offer to the new century, which is losing the real virtues of living life passionately, of taking responsibility of their actions, and of feeling good about life. Sartre once said that he never really felt a day of despair in his life. It is not a sense of anguish that existential philosophy brings out. It is the sense of an exuberance of feeling on top of it. It's more like: One's life is for him/her to create. When Sartre talks about responsibilities, he does not talk about any abstract notion. There is something concrete to it. It is about the individual, talking, creating, making decisions and taking the actions and consequences. There are over six billion people in the world and nevertheless what one individual does with his/her life shall make a difference. It makes a difference in material terms and to other people as it sets an example. The message is simple: one should never write oneself off and see oneself as a victim of various external forces. It is always his/her decision as to who he/she actually is. Thus, every individual possesses unlimited potential to transform his/her life in unpredictable and unexpected ways. One such example occurs in Sartre's "The Wall" when Ibbieta jokily tells the officials that Gris lives in the graveyard and later on learns that they have actually found him in the graveyard. Although Ibbieta was not sure about Gris' location and did not control Gris's destiny, he still controlled his own potential. Sartre may have optimistically illustrated through Ibbieta that one carries limitless potential that may be used to shape his/her life.

John Osborne writes his historically political play, "A Patriot for Me" in 1965 – in the critical decade which saw the end of stage censorship –, focusing on a significant double agent during the First World War, Alfred Redl. The play sheds light upon the intriguing correlation between the nature of espionage and attributions to and connotations of male homosexuality in the early twentieth century. Conforming his behaviours to the traditional roles of masculinities under the gaze of military officers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the protagonist Redl reflects the illustration of marginalised male gender roles within the order of hegemonic masculinities. In addition to emphasising the play’s significant role in the process of the abolishment of censorship in 1968, the aim of this paper is to scrutinise the relationship between homosexuality and treachery within the institute of espionage by relating these issues to Alfred Redl’s life.

The thirty years following the Second World War was a period of radical change politically, socially and economically. The post war years marked the height of three contravening concepts: disenchantment, aspiration and optimism for an age that promised to bring Britain out of the shadow it had buried itself in since the somewhat ambiguous victory of 1945. With its great contribution to the war, the United States of America eclipsed Great Britain and it became increasingly evident that Britain was no longer an imperial power. Even off the world stage, Britain had become a country of contradictions, projecting a veneer of unity, optimism and growth whilst hiding the reality of the new British society that consisted of division, damaged infrastructure, massive debts and a declining industry that was reliant on the American government to make economic recovery. This essay will be assessing the level at which the changing condition of Britain, from the fighting optimistic fifties to the elitist eighties, is conveyed through the male characters in High Windows, Look Back in Anger and London Fields.

Using James Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as a framework, the present paper aims at discussing the position of the artist and his role in two post-war British plays; namely, Osborne's The Entertainer, and Hare's Teeth 'n' Smile. Unlike Joyce's novel which deals with the creative evolution of Stephan Dedalus into an artist, the plays under study deal with the gradual disintegration of the main characters/artists that stand for the disintegration of society and culture at large.