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"Look Back in Anger" - John Osborne

“Look Back in Anger” – John Osborne


Look Back in Anger (1956) is a play by John Osborne. It concerns a love triangle involving an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin, his upper-middle-class wife, and her arrogant best friend.

The play was a success on the London stage, and spawned the term "angry young men" to describe Osborne and those of his generation who employed the roughness of realism in the theatre.

John James Osborne (1929 –1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, known for his attacking prose and strong critical attitude towards traditional social and political norms.

Let’s first have a look at the main characters and plot of the play:-




The play is rigid in structure and ends in a riddle: Jimmy is overwhelmed by Alison’s suffering and seems at last to realize his immaturity, cruelty and excesses; while on the other hand Alison, having suffered so much, may now feel a closer attachment and a deeper commitment to her tough husband.

It is believed that the play is based on Osborne’s unhappy marriage with Pamela Lane: while Osborne aspired towards a success’s career in theatre, Lane had more practical and materialistic aspiration.

We find here many themes like Class conflict, Identity crisis, Loss of childhood and many others.

 We find class conflict here as Jimmy comes from lower class and Alison comes from upper class. It is the class system, with its built-in special treatment for those at the top and rejection from all power for those at the bottom, that makes Jimmy’s existence seem so worthless. Jimmy likes to be with Cliff, as Cliff says “I’m Common”.

Jimmy is trapped in problems of his own identity. This play can be also read from feminist perspective, as we see that Alison also suffers much.

Thus, the play presents limitations of warm domestic life and public life.
Reference:-

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