Why so angry Jimmy?

Jimmy is the main character of the play written by John Osborne “Look Back in Anger”, the author of this play belonged to a group of playwrights and and novelists known as The Angry Young Men (and let me tell you the name suits them perfectly). Maybe the name of the play tells you something, but there is a lot anger throughout the story specially coming from our main character Jimmy. Which clearly fits with the Post-war style that Osborne belonged to, this play is the perfect mix of English humor with anger towards society. As Tecimer (2005) states: 

"Many critics have regarded Look Back in Anger as a turning point in the history of twentieth-century British theatre owing to its choice of topics from social and political circumstances of its time, its lower-middle and workingclass characters, its realistic setting and its everyday language." (p.2) 

The moment you start reading the play, you are impress by the anger but also this strange humor that comes from the character of Jimmy, a young working class man who holds a lot of resentment towards the society he lives in, and his own wife and everything that she represents (which is the upper-middle class of Britain). As it can be observed from this extract from the play "Look back in Anger" (1957), Jimmy is talking to his wife Alisson about Helena, her best friend that comes from the same world as his wife, the world that he so much hates and resents. 

"Jimmy: (to Alison) Are you going to let yourself be taken in by this saint in Dior's clothing. I will tell you the simple truth about her. (Articulating with care) She is a cow. I wouldn't mind that so much, but she seems to have become a sacred cow as well!
Cliff: You've gone too far, Jimmy. Now dry up!
Helena: Oh, let him go on.
Jimmy: (to Cliff). I suppose you're going over to that side as well. Well, why don't you? Helena will help to make it pay off for you. She's an expert in the New Economics- the Economics of the Supernatural. (...) You see, I know Helena and her kind very well. In fact, her kind are everywhere, you can't move from them. They're a romantic lot. They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past. The only place they can see the light is the Dark Ages. (...)" (p.55) 

The language that he uses to express himself denotes this hate and anger he has had throughout his life for the upper-class, for what they do within the society. He does it in a way that is funny, that you would think that he is only joking, but no, his words hide resentment, and sometimes they come out very hurtful and (as you may guess) full of anger. Jimmy expresses what he thinks, he says it like it is, he doesn't try to hide his feelings behind beautiful words; in that sense Osborne tells it like it is, which is why this play has become an icon within the British theater. As Tecimer (2005) says 

"As for the language of the play it might be said that it is realistic. Jimmy shouts and swears most of the time he opens his mouth to talk. (...) Osborne’s aim to use everyday language in the play also involves his wish to shock the audience with its bluntness" (p.5) 

It is clear that Jimmy is a character who has his ideals clear, what he thinks is correct, and what he tries to defend with all his power and energy, even tough his choice of words can seem a little outraged, it comes from the heart and mind of a young man, a young man who sees that something is wrong with the society he lives in, a young man just like any of us trying to defend and state what is wrong in today's society. And he was not alone doing this, because across the world in America there was a group of young poets who tried to do the same, this group of man was known as the Beat Generation, whom with their young energy tried to change and bring a new perspective to the world through their work. As Zhang (2013) stated "the American Beat Generation in the 1950s is a reflection of the reality in which the youth's wishes to change social life and realize their ideals couldn't be well met" (p.5) 

We have all been Jimmy in a moment of our lives, we have all have this moment in which we question the society we live in, how thinks work nowadays, we may find it right, we may find it wrong but either way what we find correct and incorrect we defend it with all our hearts; to the point we let our hearts out. I do not necessarily share the way Jimmy expresses himself, the way he treats his wife specially, but hey let's be real we all swear, get angry at someone we love, burst out in anger, we are humans and from time to time we explode. 

When I started reading the play I was like "Why so angry Jimmy? Take it down a notch", but after analyzing it and reflecting on it, I realized that we all have a little bit of Jimmy in our hearts, a little bit of Jimmy is good, it helps us defend what we believe in. 


References

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

Tecimer, E. (2005) The Analysis of the Theme of Anger in John Osborne's Plays: Look Back in           Anger, Inadmissible Evidence, Watch it Come Down. Retrieved from: https://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12606208/index.pdf 

Zhang, Y. (2013). On the Beat Generation. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. Vol. 3 No. 17. http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_17_September_2013/21.pdf