Justify the title Look Back in Anger by John Osborne.

Justify the title Look Back in Anger by John Osborne.

The title Look Back in Anger predicates a definite touch of ambiguity. The title may be taken as an imperative on the part of the speaker (author), the audience or purposely among the characters set in the framework of a play, which could be nothing but a miniature for the world against the age in question.

Whatever be the intent, the play demands a looking glass analysis of the circumstances and the characters vis-à-vis a charged currents and under-currents of conflicts that seem to run through the socio- economic, socio-psychological and historical swathes criss-crossed by political discontent of the times.

A closer look at the title would elicit an objective division of two themes embodied in it—‘to look back’ and ‘anger’. It is very likely that Osborne is of the view that to put an age in retrospect needs an emotion and there can be simply nothing more appropriate than ‘Anger’, when things come to rest on history of an age that governs the lot of an ill fated generation.
Despite its intellectual inconsistencies, the myth of anger helped place all who believed in it as it gives them a better reach into numerous areas of personal and public life hitherto inexplicable but stand accessible to emotion.

As Jeff Nuttall puts it, ‘Not one of us had any serious political preoccupation, but all had a crackling certainty of now.’ In the aftermath of post war austerity, the idea of anger came with the excitement of risk encompassing the new heaven of consumer pleasure and the looming paranoia of atomic warfare. English angst envisaged both fear and anger. Of the two, anger helped established identity—it made people take sides.
Anger thus was not only directed towards class resentment but also towards its ‘phoney’ values.
Writing for the New Statesman, T.C. Worsely commended the play for its ‘authentic new tone of the Nineteen Fifties....’ Though he acknowledged many of its weaknesses, he went on to urge the readers not to miss the play, ‘If you are young, it will speak for you. If you are middle aged, it will tell you, what the young are feeling.’

Jimmy’s anger: the fundamental character of a generation.
The cause why Jimmy is angry is to a great extent rooted in his background. The character Jimmy runs a close analogy with, ‘Lucky Jim’ a novel by Kingsley Amis published in 1954 spearheading a mocking, irreverent view of the social pretensions, cultural snobbery and authoritarianism of middle-class academics. The educated, working-class protagonist (Hero), Jim Dixon, instantly became a cult figure in the make of an aggressive, young rebel.
But why is Jimmy angry? Embittered at the betrayal of the promise of the Brave New World, Jimmy fights a lone battle against the sham and hypocrisy of the world around him. But why does he fight albeit a losing battle?............................................................................................................................

TO GET COMPLETE STUDY MATERIAL JOIN NSOU ENGLISH COACHING

SHARE

Milan Tomic

Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.

• 
• 
• 
• 
•