The Jimmy inside us

"Look Back in Anger" by John Osborne is a play in which there is developed a story that takes place in a flat in Midland Town. In the story there are 3 main characters, Allison who is Jimmy’s wife and who’s personality is described in the play as “Hers is the most elusive personality to catch in the uneasy polyphony of these three people” (p.10), Cliff that is described by the author as relaxed and easy, and Jimmy which to my mind is the most interesting one. All of them have different personalities which are shown throughout the story. However, there is only one of those personalities that really caught my attention, Jimmy’s.

On the one hand, Jimmy is very well known because of his critics and personality, as the author expresses, “He is a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice, of tenderness and freebooting cruelty” (p.9). He is always expressing his feelings and his discontent in relation with different aspects, from society, politics, newspapers, religion to even his wife Allison, and as you may noticed he do it in a very special way, Jimmy uses a sarcastic humour that is also something very characteristic of his personality.

On the other hand, most of us may think (that is something that happened to me while reading the play and watching the movie) that Jimmy is a very selfish man, that he cannot think in anything else than his own opinion and point of views, that he is always looking for the worst part of the things and the life and that he is not happy at all.

But, have you ever thought in the possibility that all of us have that Jimmy inside us? Have you ever thought about how many times we make critics in just one day? I thought about it, and it is true, there is that Jimmy inside that forces us to be critical about life, and that is present for instance when we criticize the society, when we try to persuade someone putting our opinion first or maybe when we disagree with something or someone and we are capable of having a fight if it is necessary, there is that Jimmy controlling our minds and mouths.

We as human beings are always criticizing, and this could be due to the fact that we have developed this “critical thinking” so we know what may be wrong or right (or what we think that is in that way) and this could be beneficial for us. Nevertheless, it is most of the time detrimental for us, people tend to return us the critics that we may make and that is the moment in which we lose friends or made enemies. So as I mentioned before, we have that mental patterns that give us the ability to make critics, to show our opinion emphasizing all the points that we think are important, all that with the purpose of establish our opinion over others’.

Notwithstanding, and from a different point of view, how would life be without criticism? Maybe that is what makes us humans; critics are something that helps us to change the world, because one opinion in isolation is not as strong as an opinion that was built with the help of lots of people that are in the same posture. If we do not criticize the issues that are important and that are transversal to our specie we will be hermits soon.

Talking about another important aspect of that character, what about the Beat Generation? I believe that Jimmy qualifies perfectly with a specific characteristic of the movement; Jimmy, from my point of view is a pseudo anarchist, we can interpret that because he is always against the system, against the models that the rest of the people follow and against everything that disagrees with his posture. I consider him a brave man, due to the fact that he is not afraid of what other people may think about him or his opinions even if those are the worst thing ever. Nonetheless, I have also another vision related with that, and that is as we have that critical thinking mentioned before, we are also humans and we should live in communities without being pseudo anarchists, following certain patterns in order to develop the sense of belonging, so in that way we can grow and continue with our evolution.

Finally, and as a general thought, being critical is a special feature of human beings, it is something that characterize us and that can also classify us according to our preferences or visions of life. However, if we want to be critical we have to do it in a respectful way considering that there are other opinions that may be stronger than ours and that could be even more accurate than ours. Is for that reason that we have to embrace our inner Jimmy but establishing limits, otherwise we are going to suffer the consequences of being super critical and selfish with our opinions.

References

Osborne, J. (1957). Look Back in Anger. New York: Penguin Group Inc.