Look - Back - in - Anger General Note

1.
Introduction
Look Back in Anger is a play written by John Osborne in 1956. He belonged to the generation of
Angry Young Man like John Wan or Kingsley Amis who wrote about the disaffection of low
classes to the establishment in the middle of the 20 th century, the 50s. Look Back in Anger is the
representative playwright of this literary movement. The title reflects the discontent of Jimmy,
the main character, about his way of life. John Osborne was inspired by his own experience to
write this play. He lived an unhappy marriage: her wife was a conventional woman while
Osborne was working for his career related with theatre. As is that were not enough, she
betrayed Osborne with her dentist.
This play was performed for first time on 8 th May 1956 in the Royal Court Theatre, later in 1958
was adapted to cinema by the scriptwriter Nigel Kneale and directed by Tony Richardson.
2. Argument
Jimmy Porter, Alison Porter and Cliff Lewis live in a tiny flat in the industrial region on
Midlands on the 50s. All of them are young and belongs to the working class. Jimmy is a man
who hates the monotone and ignorant life that he has. He is against the establishment, customs
and always is questioning the culture level of Cliff and Alison, his wife. Alison does not
understand Jimmy’s thoughts, she feels hurt and powerless about the situation. The things get
worse when she gets pregnant. During the weeks she is hiding this fact to Jimmy but not to her
flat-mate, her parents or her friend, Helena. Sometime later, Helena needs to live in Alison’s
house by business matters. She is a good moral support for Alison’s anguish. One day, Alison
decides escape from Jimmy taking advantage of his absence and goes to live with her parents.
Helena continues living with Cliff and Jimmy, with the beginning hated her, now seems to love
Helena and starts to live as a couple. Months later, Alison appears at home without the baby,
she has aborted the baby. In the same moment, Helena is planning to escape from Jimmy
because his disaffection about life is killing her and Cliff decides leave Jimmy with the intention
of starting a new life. Alison, who is very affected by the loss of her baby, determines to love
again with Jimmy and he accepts.
3. Genre and Topics
Look Back in Anger is a social-realistic play. Theatre from 1956 acquires a violent point of view
about bad working conditions. At that time, cities on the north of England are industrialized and
little by little people start to react against the system with violence.
The topics showed in Look Back in Anger are:

The disaffection against the establishment: Jimmy is against all, Church, economy and social
classes. He is an anarchist, he wants to be detached from all social conventions. Because of this,
he tries to literate himself through lecture and always is complaining about the ignorance of
Alison and Cliff.
Monotony: For Jimmy, his daily life is monotony. It is reflected because many times the action
takes place on Saturdays reading the newspaper and complaining about the Church bells. But
not only this, Jimmy has to go work in his sweet-stand every day, like workers have to go to the
factory.
Finally, lack of culture in working class: Jimmy knows that a clever man can see through the
system. He tries to wake up Alison and Cliff from the ignorance slumber, but that is not possible
so he feels alone and angry. In working class society, until workers do not start to be aware of
their conditions, they will never get their rights.
4. Structure
This play is divided into three acts. These are place in the same room in a flat on Midlands, on n
industrialised area, the Midlands. The division criterion is time.
In first act, is on Sunday evening of April. The second act is divided into two scenes: First, two
weeks later also in Sunday. And second, the following evening. Finally, the third act is also
divided in two scenes. First scene takes place several months later, another Sunday in the same
situation as first act, but Alison is replaced by Helena. The second scene happens minutes later,
where Alyson appears and the story finishes.
5. Characters
Jimmy Porter: Je is the representation of the angry young men. Jimmy is against all: traditions,
religion, ignorance, society structure and daily life. Jimmy I s a man who tries to grow himself
through music and words. Also, he is always complaining about the ignorance of his wife,
Alison and his friend, Cliff.
Cliff Lewis: He is Alison and Jimmy’s friend and lives with them. He is a worker and his
culture is limited. Jimmy is always trying to aware him about his lack of education. Cliff
distinguishes by his kindness to Alison. He represents the working class.
Alison Porter: She is Jimmy’s wife. Alison’s family belongs to middle-class, but she is married
with Jimmy who belongs to working class and Alison’s parents do not approve it. She is tired to
suffer Jimmy’s disaffection with life and things get worse when she gets pregnant. So, one day
2
she decides to escape from him with the help of her friend, Helena. At the end, Alison comes
back to show Jimmy her suffering because she lost the baby.
Helena Charles: Helena is Alison’s best friend. Like her, Helena belongs to upper-class family.
One day, due to business matters she starts to live in Alison’s flat. At the beginning, her
relationship with Jimmy is horrible but when Alison leaves the house, Helena and Jimmy start a
relation together. Finally, she leaves Jimmy due to his behaviour.
Coronel Redfern: He is Alison’s father. He was a very important person in the India and he still
keeps the mentality of old times. Redfern represents the greatness of British Colonization in
former times.
6. Staging
John Osborne adapted the space of the play to a little theatre. Always us the same room with the
same furniture and little things change, for example, the iron table or Helena’s owning instead
of Alison’s ones. The illumination should be the same as a real house and it does not need focus
any actor because there are not much of them in the scene.
However, the voice does not need to be forced and exaggerate because the ideal theatre must be
little, with little capacity to create an intimate ambient. Actors must be able to speak naturally,
even if they speak low. This kind of staging gives more realism to the performance.
About time, the play is not long. The acts and scenes are concrete, so the director should not
abbreviate the play.
7. Language
The register used is colloquial due to the youth of the characters and social environment. In
colloquial marks are included contractions, words and dialectical marks. Actors must have
Midlands accent because the location is relevant for the story. For example: “Not’arf” that is an
abbreviation of “not half”, “gets’em” as “gets them” or “yawn” as a noun that is used
colloquially meaning a boring event. This kind of particularities are founded when Jimmy or
Cliff are talking because they belongs to working class.
About Cliff, we can guess that he is from Wales due to some words from there like “ boyo” as
“guy” or “hullo” as “hello”. However, Jimmy sometimes uses cult words as “jocund” (pg. 79)
that means “cheerful”. He uses this kind of words to evidence that Alison and Cliff are
uncultured. Also, there are onomatopoeias, typical of relaxed, friendly and spontaneous
situations.
3
Jimmy is a vert interesting character for language side because he has deep utterances typical of
the angry young man like: “The heaviest, strongest creatures in this world seem to be the
lonliest” (Pg. 94) or “Let’s to pretend that we’re human beings, and that we’re actually alive.
Just for a while. What do you said? Let’s pretend we’re human” (Pg. 15). These sentences show
Jimmy’s disillusion about humans.
8. Personal opinion
I really like Look Back in Anger. Jimmy is a very special and interesting character. He is an
unconventional persona for that times, the fifties, he is a rebel, like a romantic hero. Nobody
who surrounds Jimmy understands him.
I recommend reading this playwright to understand the situation and problems of that moment.
Also, it is a light play for reading, the vocabulary is rich and the topics are clear. When I read it,
I did not expect that Alison comes back at the end. I thought that Helena changed her mind and
adapted her to Jimmy’s thought.
Look Back in Anger was very important because was the play which represented excellently the
attitudes of the angry young men.
9. Other critics
Theater Review: John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger by Scott Brown
In this review Brown introduces people to Look Back in Anger historical context because that
situation is not the same as now. That times were hard for work and the welfare system was not
established. Brown describes the characters and the stage very briefly.

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3. Genre and Topics

The topics showed in Look Back in Anger are:

Theater Review: John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger by Scott Brown

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