LOOK BACK IN ANGER A SINGLE-MAN PLAY

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CHAPTER 13

LOOK BACK IN ANGER A SINGLE-MAN PLAY

Jimmy’s Anger

Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger bullies the world in gene and his women in particular for not “caring”. He demands and a cates the attitude of “caring”, the denial of which upsets and distan him. It becomes obvious when he recalls about his dying father I was the only one who cared”. Jimmy’s anger is vital t of the play. His anger is the motivating force which moves the action see, the play. Jimmy’s anger is the dominating force that drives the play an makes the action move. to the econ

Jimmy in Relation to the Contemporary Society Jimmy is a neurotic and his world is a private one and his languag

too is private and the writer makes use of it at risk. This has an obviou relevance to the question of Jimmy’s anger. If Look Back in Anger is considered to be a study in sado-masochism, then the play would lose much of its significance. In that case no comments made by Jimmy his contemporary society could be taken seriously. His tirades would become meaningless, his witty comments, his great rhetoric would s ply be dismissed as the utterance of a hysteric. Under this case the play would be reduced to a mere case history. To consider the play seriously is to take Jimmy’s views and comments seriously ie. taking Jimmy se riously in his dramatic context. To succeed, the play must counterpart Jimmy against contemporary English society which must be realised on the stage by Alison, Cliff, Helena and Col. Redfern.

The Hero Dominates Over Other Characters The other characters assume a passive role compared to Jimmy

Even Jimmy’s wife Alison is included among the supporting characters. In bullying her, Jimmy seems to get an easy revenge on the middle class whom he holds in contempt. Jimmy searches for someone who could counter his verbal attack. Cliff as an uneducated ignorant person fails to match Jimmy’s rhetoric. Alison on the other hand assumes the role of a passive sufferer who silently bears her husband’s tantrums. Jimmy is unsatisfied, he would have been satisfied had Alison been able to hit him back with equal vehemence. He constantly provokes her by his scath- ing remark and her failure to retaliate infuriates him further and he says about Alison thus: “that girl can twist your arm off with her si- lence”. Helena is the only character who satisfies Jimmy’s thirst for retaliation. Jimmy is relieved in a way to find some-one who matches

LOOK BACK IN ANGER, A SINGLE-MAN PLAY

101 his fighting spirit. When Helena bluntly tells him; “I think you’re a very firesome young man”, he is delighted and roars up with laughter. In spite of her guts and sharp tongue. Helena even fails to counter Jimmy in his rhetorical tirade. Helena is tougher than Alison and typical of her dass. But she is too much of a type to balance Jimmy. So Jimmy natu- rally dominated the whole play overshadowing and dwindling the other characters to minor supporting characters.

A One Man Play

Jimmy has been endowed with so much thought, experience, en- ergy, wit and intelligence that he overshadows the other characters of the play. The supporting characters are too feeble to support Jimmy and his anger. Thus we are left with Jimmy’s all powerful but directionless energy. Jimmy claims to be more experienced than others. He tells Helena and others: “I knew more about-love-betrayal — and death, when I was ten years old then you will probably ever know all your life”. When Helena decided to break off with Jimmy, her decla- ration that she cannot be happy when she is hurting someone else, pro- vokes Jimmy’s speech, “They all want to escape from the pain of being aliveā€¦.”. So much attention, energy and thought have been invested in while sketching the character of Jimmy that he becomes the all pervad- ing figure in the play. Jimmy is the reason, both for the play’s tremen- dous initial impact as well as for its ultimate failure. Though it is considered to be a naturalist play it is actually a shallow slice-of-natu- ralism that is presented in the play. The content of the play is reduced to Jimmy’s “views” which are too indiscriminate to be taken seriously in themselves. Too much concentration on one character has resulted in the failure of the play as a drama.

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