Osborne, John - Look Back in Anger (2)

John Osborne and “ Look Back in Anger”

Osborne in his play “Look Back in Anger” refuses the traditional mores and introduces the figure of the “Angry Young Man” whose rebellious nature is typical of post-war generation of Fifties. Jimmy porter, the protagonist, embodies perfectly this youth and is considered also an anti-hero, because even if he is a protester, an outsider rebel against the Establishment, he never does something and vents his violence, frustration and useless complaints on his wife Alison, the daughter of a retire colonel, symbol of the System, which he does not accept and symbol of that high class that he has never managed to reach .So Jimmy even if he is a university graduate, is forced to live and share a squalid flat with his wife and his friend Cliff. He is not satisfied because his education has not brought any economic income and behaves in a nevrotic way. Between husband and wife there's no communication, Alison is completely passive, but in the second act, she reveals the stronger of the two because she has the courage to choose: she leaves him and looks for a better life. However she comes back because she has lost her baby and everything returns as before. In this way the plot is circular, structured according to a conventional way, and it is also dramatic because there's the distinction between the silence of the woman and an hard monologue of the man.