Commentary on Classicist Postwar Britain in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger
Melissa Ueckert
8/4/2020
While the close of the second World War brought with it a general restoration of national security in Great Britain, everyday life found itself far from what it had been prior to Britain and France’s joint declaration of war on Germany in September of 1939. British society was left in a complete state of disrepair that was both structural and functional. Not only were the proverbial lines drawn in the sand between social classes still existent, but the divisions in said classicist society seemed more distinct and polarized than ever. The upper echelons of British society found themselves bolstered higher than ever before, and the working class looked on with a resentful eye as they felt their struggles to maintain even the simplest of existences enlarged exponentially. It is from this resentment and utter acrimony for the wealthy and privileged that the 1950s saw the literary movement of the Angry Young Men born. As the title suggests, the movement was composed of a host of young British writers who projected their disgruntled views of the society in which they felt themselves utterly trapped through literature. Arguably the most notable of these literary artists was London playwright John Osborne. To this day Osborne is often considered to be the preeminent figure of the movement, as it was his play Look Back in Anger (1956) that ultimately came to be recognized as the “father” work of the Angry Young Men movement. It was this specific work of Osborne’s that first introduced to British theatre audiences a new commentary on the unsatisfying and discriminatory social system which Osborne found himself ensconced in. In this manner, the play is universally accepted as the movement’s true genesis. Drawing focus to the problems existing in classicist postwar Britain, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger serves as the catalyst of the Angry Young Men movement by expressing frustration with the inequities between the upper and lower classes and glorifying vitriolic masculinity as a redeeming character trait in the face of economic and social disparity.
As surviving British soldiers returned to their homes after the conclusion of World War II, a very specific demographic of British nationals began to come together and cohesively express their opinions on the state of their country’s social and economic structure. This demographic, comprised of young lower to lower-middle-class male intellectuals who had stayed behind during the war, uniformly possessed a voice that was violently critical of the British social class structure. They acknowledged that this was not a new structure, as one could argue that classicism is as old as Great Britain itself, but that the divisions between classes were significantly more pronounced than before the war began. These intellectuals were especially incensed by Parliament’s passage of The Education Act of 1944, which provided state funding for individuals to go to a civic University who otherwise could not have afforded to do so. Parliament insinuated that with a university education would come new job prospects, but a majority of young men who took advantage of the Act found that this was not remotely the case. Not only were these men looked down upon by elite Cambridge and Oxford graduates for having attended the “red brick” schools of the United Kingdom’s education system, but they also found that their education was unable to help them transcend class divides in the job market as well. It is from this disconnect that the titular anger of the Angry Young Men movement derives. While the wealthy sitting comfortably in Britain’s highest social circles liked to wax poetic about how noble and generous the 1944 act was, those who benefitted from it knew better, and had very intense opinions about the impact it had made on society. “The social and political situation of postwar England … was in a state of very rapid social change,” and efforts made by Parliament to lessen the gap between classes, “led to an entire new generation of writers … entering the literary scene in the 1950s, and their work more often than not reflected the social upheaval which surrounded them.” (Hague 212) A system that was passed off as having meant to help the lower to lower-middle classes was ultimately hurting the members of said classes, and with a newfound loquacity borne of their educations, they turned to literature to express their aggravation. One such young man, playwright John Osborne, established the definitive commencement of the Angry Young Men movement when the term “angry young men” was coined by The Royal Court Theatre in connection with the performance of Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger. With the publication and performance of this play in 1956 came an enraged crescendo of voices expressing animosity towards an upper class that seemed persistently impenetrable. These voices, the voices of poor, educated, yet unemployed young British men, sought to express how, “the new cultural and educational opportunities offered … were counterbalanced by the still traditional and class-bound society which was providing these opportunities.” (Hague 219) One of these voices, Osborne, gladly assumed the mantle of “the boorish [product] of the 1944 Education act” (Brook 20) and shared his feelings with audiences, making no effort to dilute or minimize just how angry he was. With Look Back in Anger, Osborne sought to express his frustrations, but to do so in a humanizing and relatable fashion. He specifically set out to write a play that engaged others and make people personally connect with it, and therefore, connect with the problems that it highlighted. In writing the play that he did, Osborne, “probed into personal relations and bared their social determinants,” thus peeling back and exposing an aggressive sentiment felt by a very specific, yet very prominent, demographic of British citizens. (Weiss 286) To do so, Osborne was very intentional in crafting his protagonist, Jimmy, who could arguably be viewed as a personal caricature of Osborne himself, as their sentiments towards society are so remarkably cohesive. In drafting Jimmy, Osborne sought to create a figure who would, “not be meek and love his foes, but rather [who] is bitterly contemptuous of those whom he indicts of cruel insensitivity and lack of brains and guts.” (Weiss 286) Perhaps the most notable character trait possessed by Jimmy is his belief that authenticity is the most valuable and necessary character trait that a person can have. Just as Osborne did, Jimmy believes that there is an inherent, irrefutable link between candor and the lower classes, and between deception and the upper classes. Brook details how Osborne’s play, as the cornerstone of the Angry Young Men movement, sought to, “challenge the way in which social distinctions were reproduced by cultural distinctions” (Brook 21) These distinctions between the classes, Osborne asserted, were exacerbated by upper-class society’s perceived need to constantly operate under a vapid and disingenuous front. He thusly wrote with the understanding that he wanted Look Back in Anger to, “[identify] political problems and [represent] authentic experience,” as these were two endeavors greatly needed in British society at the time. (Brook 22) Osborne was firm in his belief that with passionate outward expressions of emotion came authenticity, with authenticity came validity, and with validity came the moral high ground, effectively designating the expressive lower classes as “good” and “right,” and the reserved upper classes as “bad” and “wrong.” Brook details how, in the same vein as Cambridge literary critic FR Leavis, Jimmy, and by association Osborne as well, are convinced that “the problem with society is cultural decline, which can only be halted by the sensitive, feeling minority, who defend or keep alive values in the face of an indifferent majority,” and that, “the minority is marked by its capacity for feeling and its capacity for life.” (24) To state it plainly, Jimmy is loud, brash, and unapologetically mean. He complains at length about anything and everything, from the “noisiness” of women to the handling of smoking pipes. Throughout his life he has tried his hand at multiple different career paths, and has been disillusioned with all of them, as he is the particular brand of individual that will, at the end of the day, “find themselves at war in a world with no acceptable outlets for their energies, a world ostensibly without … occupations worth one’s efforts.” (Weiss 285) Jimmy is a mass of anger and chaotic energy so formidable that Weiss alludes there will never be an outlet acceptably receptive enough to placate him; no investment of his time will ever be worth the trouble. Weiss calls his present and past endeavors in candy sales, advertising, and journalism, “three solid callings requiring solid vices,” indicating that they require a type of even-keeled commitment that Jimmy simply does not have to offer. (285) Jimmy wants nothing to do with this type of “vice,” and makes no secret of his disdain for those members of society who ascribe to such “vices.” It is these members of society, after all, that occupy the bulk of the upper classes, and it is the child of two such individuals who bears the brunt of Jimmy’s abusive ire.
Throughout the narrative of Look Back in Anger, protagonist Jimmy rants and raves incessantly, but it is remarkably telling who is more often than not on the receiving end of his diatribes. The daughter of a wealthy and successful Colonel, Alison possesses a poised and agreeable presence that seems out of place in the home she shares with Jimmy, her husband. Osborne describes Alison as tall, slim, and beautiful with eyes, “so large and deep they should make equivocation impossible,” a peculiar trait for her to possess when paired with the, “surprising reservation” she exudes. Very rarely is Jimmy genuinely kind to Alison, and the issues he eviscerates her for almost always devolve into the problem he has with her general countenance. She is infinitely more gentle, composed, and logical than he is, which Jimmy appears to almost feel threatened by. He detests that she is the natural product of her privileged upbringing in a hierarchical circle that perpetually excludes him. If Jimmy’s emotional outbursts make him authentic and “right,” then her grace makes her entirely wrong. Thus is cultivated the age-age old patriarchal assertion that when a man and a woman are pitted against one another, the man will be correct and “win” and the woman will lose, as is just the natural order of this particular system of thought. Osborne establishes an association between Jimmy’s belief that he is morally right for being authentically emotive and his inherent masculinity. This construction, “associates classless freedom with a kind of rugged masculinity, so that maleness is a prerequisite for … authenticity.” (Brook 29) Jimmy is so invested in his conviction that he is the ideal version of himself that it leads him to detest anyone who is fundamentally unlike him. Because his foil, Alison, is a woman, he is by association routed to detest women. Through this train of association, in Jimmy’s mind, “women, in turn, become fetishes of a restrictive upper-middle class culture.” (Brook 29) A distinct characteristic of the Angry Young Men were their reluctance, if not downright refusal, to acknowledge the classicist divides that triggered their ire head-on. They knew full well what social rules hindered them, but did not want to name them outright. Instead, the scapegoat of the demure woman was normalized in their writings. In Osborne’s work, “Jimmy’s assertion of aggressive masculinity is a way of asserting an oppositional identity without invoking class,” or having to publicly acknowledge his lowly status in the eyes of the British elite. A number of reasons for this tactic can be inferred, from pride to denial, but reasoning is ultimately unimportant in the grand context of what the tactic itself represents. What is important is the fact that, “the play implicitly associates masculinity with a subaltern class position that is contrasted with upper-middle class culture,” and therefore, with Alison’s femininity. (Brook 28) To Jimmy, men, and the lower classes by association, are emotive, virile, imposing, authentic, and right. Women, and the upper classes by association, are reserved, stuffy, dishonest, inauthentic, and wrong. In creating the dynamic between Jimmy and Alison that he did, and, “by transposing class resentment into a more general criticism of social inauthenticity and of femininity,” Osborne allowed his work to, “imply [classicist] problems have an appealingly simple solution: they can be resisted and transcended by the authentic, free male individual whose emotional honesty contrasts with the dominant culture, and whose masculinity dominates over inauthentic femininity.” (Brook 24) To be worthy in Jimmy’s eyes, quiet, poised Alison must break with her privileged past, “and submit herself at the cost of old ties and comforts to a new set of loyalties and ideals.” (Weiss 286) Jimmy frequently tries to goad Alison into arguments, calling on her to take the moral high ground and ascribe to his version of being boisterously in the right. In projecting all of his worldly frustrations and grievances onto the one woman he has most at his disposal, Jimmy spells out for the audience the depths to which the Angry Young Men’s rage towards classicist Britain ran.
While particular anti-establishment sentiments of the British working class that predated World War II persisted after the conflict concluded, it was the efforts made by the writers of the Angry Young Men literary movement that encapsulated rage and frustration felt towards the socially and economically privileged. Of these writers, playwright John Osborne is noted for his work Look Back in Anger’s exceptional ability to capture why lower-class British men were so upset, and to highlight the manners in which they expressed their anger. Observation of Osborne’s treatment of two specific demographics – the wealthy and women – offer insight into the inner machinations of this profound literary movement, how it came to be, and why, even today, it is considered a noteworthy period of historical social importance.
Works Cited
Brook, Susan. “Engendering Rebellion: The Angry Young Man, Class and Masculinity.” Posting the Male: Masculinities in Post-War and Contemporary British Literature, 2003, pp. 19–29.
Hague, Angela. “Picaresque Structure and the Angry Young Novel.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 32, no. 2, 1986, pp. 209–220.
Weiss, Samuel A. “Osborne's Angry Young Play.” Educational Theatre Journal, vol. 12, no. 4, 1960, pp. 285–288.
