We should all have a say, always!

                                  Look Back in Anger
The play starts with the three main characters at their flat, living a typical Sunday evening for them. Soon, Jimmy Porter’s personality starts to be noticed and it results certainly unpleasant to read about someone who is constantly (or rather say always) complaining and mistreating the only persons who really care about him, but just like most things in life, looks can be deceiving. As the first act is developed, we can infer what is really happening inside Jimmy’s head and why he behaves like a person worth of absolutely no mercy. He is not as bad as he seems to be… do not get me wrong, please, he is not the best man in the world and some of his actions have no justification at all, but he has a point behind all the anger that fulfills his heart.

         Jimmy seems to hate everybody, yes I said HATE. He is constantly mistreating and humiliating Cliff for being uneducated and he certainly exerts psychological violence against his wife, Allison. But the most unbelievable (not really) fact is that he hates people with whom he has no daily contact. He constantly insults Helena, talks badly about Allison’s brother, mother and father. The man seems to have no love inside him! But, tell me something, would not you be upset with the people you live with if they had no emotions? Would not be frustrating if the people who surround you were living life without questioning everything or anything, at least? Jimmy seems to be a lot like a person taken from nowadays society, a person who is not comfortable with living the life that society tells us to live. He questions things, he questions life, and he questions the society where he lives in, for God’s sake! Should not we all do that instead of accepting everything and living the routine?

It’s true, nothing, absolutely nothing justifies violence, but the reader witnesses how Jimmy uses violence as a tool to awake people, to raise awareness about things and finally to try to make them have a say on something, at least something!

“Hallelujah! I'm alive! I've an idea. Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive. Just for a while. What do you say? Let's pretend we're human. (He looks from one to the other.) Oh, brother, it's such a long time since I was with anyone who got enthusiastic about anything.“ (Osborne, 1959. P.5)

The previous quote exemplifies exactly what was just described, he needs action! At some point of the first act, Jimmy mentions a person whose actions and thoughts were the opposite. A person who would have never needed such a violent (and unsuccessful) wake up call. Jimmy talks about Madeleine as she were the only person who gets him, the only person with whom he could talk and get some emotion from. Madeleine  spoke his same language. You get now his frustration? He had a different mind for the time and he had found a person who though just as him, but now he was stuck with people who were unable to give him feedback about his thoughts, and let me say that there’s nothing more frustrating than living with people who do not have a say on anything.

Another detail (not that detail) is Jimmy’s relationship with his father. At a fight-like  conversation with Helena, Jimmy  says something interesting just before he starts describing his father’s death. He says:

“I’m the type that detests physical violence. Which is why, if I find some woman trying to cash in on what she thinks is my defenceless chivalry by lashing out with her frail little fists, I lash back at her.”

You see? This is some gender-equality type of though, God he was a visionary! Ok, maybe it is not that obvious… and this is not the argument that I wanted to develop in this paragraph but I think that it is another example of how differently he thought for a man at the time. I’m sorry, going back to my point, what’s the relevance of his dad’s death’s in his personality?

                While he was fighting with Helena he asks her if she has ever seen someone die before, her answer was no.  As he explains the slow and painful death of his dad, we are witnesses of how difficult was for him, a 10-year-old boy to watch his father not only die, but to stand by him during a whole year, listening to war, betrayal, hate and anger stories at such a young age. He said that he was the only one who cared about his father and that is certainly a feeling that no little boy should hold in his heart.

“You see, I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry — angry and helpless. And I can never forget it.”

He was angry with life due to his father condition, and that anger stayed in his heart, it seems that experiencing such a traumatic experience at such an early age had not only a negative impacti in his later life, but also it was a permanent mark what would accompanied him for life. When I first read this part it was somehow clear that this might have been the center of his stone-like heart, but it was not until reading Terry Browne’s essay on the book that the idea was confirmed. Browne says:

“Jimmy’s source of pain and anger seem to come from the same source as that of John Osborne who, at an early age, watched his own father die of tuberculosis.” (Browne,2009)

Jesus, that makes sense! If the author had the same unpleasant experience as a child, it is pretty likely that he had included it in the play. And maybe he develops Jimmy’s character as a sort of portrait of himself, as some kind of scream through the character, a way of saying the things that he could not freely say (which was a tendency at the time). It is known that traumatic experiences mark you for the rest of your life either positively or negatively and we have no right to judge someone’s reaction to it.

You know the say “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always” I think we should keep this in mind. Instead of judge people for the way they act, let’s just stop for a minute and think: why is this person behaving this way? Is there a reason behind this inexplicable behavior? Yes, Jimmy’s attitude was absolutely despicable, but as the play is developed we are able to understand him somehow and after all, he was not as crazy as he seemed. 

Bonus track: Please, if you want to watch the 1989 movie adaptation, click here

References:

- Osborne, J. (1957). Look back in anger, a play in three acts. New York: Criterion Books.

 - Browne, T (2009) Criticism, Look back in anger.