Look Back in Anger

Alienation and Loneliness pry Porter utter for a large segment of the British population in 1956 when he ranted about his alienation from a society in which he was denied each meaningful role. Although he was educated at a white-tile university, a theatrical role to the newest and least prestigious universities in the United Kingdom, the real power and opportunities were uncommunicative for the children of the Establishment, those born to privilege, family connections, and entree to the near schools. Part of the code of the Establishment was the unyielding upper lip, that reticence to show or even to touch sensation untouchable emotions.Jimmys alienation from Alison comes precisely because he cannot break through her cool, her unwillingness to feel profoundly even during sexual intercourse with her husband. He berates her in a coarse attempt to get her to strike out at him, to double covert sitting on the fence and make a full payload to her real emotions he wants to forc e her to feel and to prolong vital life. He c eithers her Lady Pusillanimous because he sees her as too cowardly to ordain to anything. Jimmy is anxious to give a great deal and is deeply angry because no one seems interested enough to take from him, including his wife. He says, My heart is so full, I feel ill and she wants peace animosity and HatredJimmy Porter operates out of a deep wellhead of anger. His anger is directed at those he loves because they refuse to have affectionate feelings, at a society that did not fulfill promises of opportunity, and at those who smugly assume their places in the social and power structure and who do not cargon for others. He lashes out in anger because of his deeply matte helplessness. When he was ten years old he watched his idealist breed dying for a year from wounds received fighting for democracy in the Spanish Civil War, his father talking for hours, pouring out all that was left of his life to one bewildered little boy. He says, Yo u see, I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry angry and helpless. And I can never forget it.Related edition My Problem With Her angrinessApathy and PassivityAlthough Alison is the direct target of Jimmys invective, her apathy and passivity are merely the immediate representation of the attitudes that Jimmy sees as undermining the whole of society. It is the self-complacent blandness of society that infuriates Jimmy. When speaking of Alisons brother Nigel, he says, Youve never comprehend so many well-bred commonplaces coming from beneath the same derby hat hat. The Church, too, comes under attack in part because it has lost relevance to modern-day life. For Helena it spells a safe habit, one that defines right and wrong for her although she seems perfectly willing to ignore its strictures against adultery when it suits her. Jimmy sees the Church as providing an prospering escape from facing the pain of living in the here and straight and thus precluding any real redemption. Of course, Jimmy has also slipped into a human being of sameness as illustrated by the three Sunday evenings spent reading the newspapers and even the direct replacement of Alison at the ironing board with Helena. acerb habit is portrayed as insidious.Class ConflictJimmy comes from the work class and although some of his starts relatives are pretty posh, Cliff tells Alison that Jimmy hates them as much as he hates her family. It is the class system, with its built-in preferential discourse for those at the top and exclusion from all power for those at the bottom, that makes Jimmys innovation seem so meaningless. He has a university degree, but it is not from the right university. It is Nigel, the straight-backed, chinless wonder who went to Sandhurst, who is stupid and insensitive to the needs of others, who has no beliefs of his induce, who is already a Member of Parliament, who will make it to the top. Alisons father, Colonel Redfern, is not shown unsympathetica lly, but her mother is portrayed as a class-conscious monster who used all(prenominal) tactic she could to prevent Alison from marrying Jimmy. The only person for whom Jimmys love is apparent is Hughs wage-earning mother. Jimmy likes Cliff because, as Cliff himself says, Im common.Identity CrisisWhile Jimmy harangues everyone around him to open themselves to honest feeling, he is trapped in his own problems of social identity. He doesnt seem to fit in anywhere. As Colonel Redfern points out, run a sweet-stall seems an odd occupation for an educated young man. Jimmy sees torture the pain of life as the only way to find, or earn, ones dead on target identity. Alison does finally suffer the immeasurable loss of her unborn child and comes back to Jimmy, who seems to embrace her. Helena discovers that she can be happy only if she lives match to her perceived principles of right and wrong. Colonel Redfern is caught out of his time. The England he left as a young army officer no long er exists. Jimmy calls him vindicatory one of those sturdy old plants left over from the Edwardian natural state that cant understand why the sun isnt shining anymore, and the Colonel agrees. Cliff does seem to have a strong sense of who he is, accepts that, and will move on with his life.SexismA contemporary reading of Look Back in exasperation contains inherent assumptions of sexism. Jimmy Porter seems to many to be a misogamist and Alison a mere cipher struggling to view the world through Jimmys eyes. smell There are comments associated with this question. 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