What are the themes of anger and frustration in Osborne's Look Back in Anger?

While different characters embrace anger and frustration in Osborne's work, no character embodies it more than Jimmy.  His entire being is the result of anger and frustration.  One aspect of Jimmy's experiences with anger and frustration is rooted at his perceptions of the world around him.  Socially, Jimmy feels anger and frustration because of the hypocrisy he believes intrinsic to the world.  Jimmy feels that the England he sees around him is vapid and empty, representative of a hollow world that lacks passion and intensity:  "I suppose people of our generation aren't able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us, in the thirties and the forties, when we were still kids. ...There aren't any good, brave causes left." When Jimmy says, "if you’ve no world of your own, it’s rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else’s," it is reflective of the lack of faith he has in the world.  Part of Jimmy's anger is rooted in the perception of the emptiness in the world around him.

Jimmy's frustration and anger are also internal realities. He feels that the world around him does not validate his talent.  While he has finished university, it was not undertaken at a "prestigious" institution, and thus he has to run the candy stall when he feels worthy of much more.  He also experienced an imprint of pain that will never leave him in terms of seeing his father die at a young age.  For Jimmy, such an experience contributed to a feeling of estrangement, fueling his anger and frustration:  "You see I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry - angry and helpless. And I can never forget it. I knew more about - love... betrayal... and death, when I was ten years old than you will probably ever know in your life.”  Such an experience is what makes Jimmy is a crusader for the experience of "real" suffering and has nothing but disdain for those who lack that authentic expressions of feeling. This is part of the reason for his savage cruelty to Alison, “Lady Pusillanimous" who is a  “monument to non-attachment."  Jimmy believes that the only way individuals can experience real feelings that are not contrived and controlled by society is through undergoing painfully transformative experiences.  Breaking free of the socially controlled world and tapping into the painful reservoir of human emotions is something that Jimmy validates.  In the world around him of what he perceives to be self- serving phoniness and inauthenticity, this becomes a challenge that he feels must be overcome:  

One day, when I'm no longer spending my days running a sweet-stall, I may write a book about us all. It's all here. Written in flames a mile high. And it won't be recollected in tranquillity either, picking daffodils with Auntie Wordsworth. It'll be recollected in fire, and blood. My blood.

Jimmy's anger and frustration is evident in his reactions to a world in which "picking daffodils with Auntie Wordsworth" is more validated than his own voice.

Jimmy's anger and frustration comes from a place within that expresses challenges with the world around and within him.  Jimmy's claim that he is not a "gentleman" is indicative of his desire to find a realm different than the condition in which he lives.  This becomes his primary motivation in the drama and reflects the anger and frustration in his characterization.

What are the major themes in Look Back in Anger?

Alienation from society is a major theme. The main character, Jimmy Porter, was shut out of a meaningful position, even though he went to an excellent university. He was not born into "the establishment", from a family with connections. Jimmy feels alienated from Alison because she cannot feel deeply and honestly as he can. He refers to her as "Lady Pusillanimous"

Jimmy is deeply angry. He chooses to express his anger specifically at: people he loves because they do not feel passionately. He also is very angry at society because he was promised equality but, in fact, has so few opportunities. He is angry at those who are smug and satisfied in their positions of power and privelege in society.  He is angry because he is so helpless. His helplessness runs deep within him, since he was 10 years old when he watched his father die from fighting toward democracy in the Spanish Civil War.

One of the central themes of this important play is that of alienation and loneliness, that is of course presented to us in the character of Jimmy Porter. In particular, Osborne uses him as a mouthpiece to rant about the inequalities of British society in 1956. Even though he received a good education, the fact that he attended a newer (and therefore less prestigious) university meant that he felt he was prevented from playing any significant and meaningful role in society.

Those kind of privileged positions are only available to those who have been brought up in the "right" kind of families and attended the "right" kind of educational establishments. The famous British "stiff upper lip," which refers to the Englishman's distaste of expressing any emotion, is of course expressed in the character of Alison, Jimmy's wife, who seems unable to engage fully with her emotions, in spite of Jimmy's encouragement for her to do so. Note what he says at one stage about this trait of hers:

My heart is so full, I feel ill--and she wants peace!

He rants and raves in the attempt to produce some kind of reaction, but all in vain. Jimmy is therefore a character who is profoundly at odds with society and the kind of environment in which he has been brought up thanks to his class and life chances.

As with any work of literature, there are a dazzling array of possible themes that you could identify when examining this excellent play. However one theme that to me stands out clearly is that of class differences and the conflict that this creates. Consider the main character, Jimmy. He seems to be a victim of the structure of the different classes that make life so difficult for the working class. In this world that we are presented with, getting ahead and success are dependent on things that appear to be largely out of your control, such as what kind of family you are born into. Thus it is that, although Jimmy worked hard to get a degree and therefore has a good education, the fact that he was born into the working class and went to the "wrong" university means he is limited in terms of his options. This is in sharp contrast with Nigel, who, in spite of his obvious deficiencies as a character, is a Member of the British Parliament and will obviously do well in this world.

In addition, consider the presentation of Alison's mother, who does everything she can to prevent her daughter marrying Jimmy. The only character who appears to be unmarred by the pervading class distinctions that delineate so many characters in this play is Cliff, who seems to be able to accept his own position and identity by declaring honestly that he is "common," in sharp contrast to others who struggle with their own sense of identity and rage against the way that class is used against them.

The class system is therefore presented as a divisive system that disempowers and empowers depending on the accident of birth, rather than any other basis, such as individual merit. It is this that Jimmy rages against, producing the stereotype of the "angry young man" that dominates this play.

What is the theme of Look Back in Anger and what are some criticisms of the play?

John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger is one of the seminal works in a movement sometimes called the "Angry Young Men" or, informally, the "Angries". This group arose in the 1950s in Britain, just after World War II and also includes Kingsley Amis.

The central theme of the play is social class, and secondary themes include education, anger, alienation, and entitlement.

In the wake of World War II, greater educational opportunities, especially at the newer universities, opened up for members of the working class, with a promise of greater social mobility. However, much of an impermeable class system remained, in which people who did not have the right accent or manners were not accepted among middle- and upper-class elites. While Jimmy Porter, the protagonist of Look Back in Anger, is alienated from his working-class roots by his education, he also cannot break into middle-class society and occupations due to his working-class background, which leads him to be angry and resentful. Alison Porter, his wife, comes from an upper-middle class background, and many of the tensions in their marriage are due to class differences.

Much of the scholarship concerning this play focuses on issues of class and gender, with more recent feminist scholarship seeing the abusive relationship in the marriage as rooted in the dysfunctional nature of a highly stratified society and linking class struggles to patriarchy.

What is the theme of love in the play Look Back in Anger?

The theme of love in the play is presented as something that is complicated by class differences.

This means that Jimmy and Alison, who hail from completely different class backgrounds, are unable to enjoy a loving relationship as most people would understand it. It should be pointed out that this is far from being Alison's fault; it's all because of Jimmy's hang-ups about class.

To be sure, Jimmy is a passionate man, a man of emotions. But it seems that he's so overcome with anger at a society that he cordially loathes and from which feels excluded that he's incapable of truly loving anyone, especially not someone like Alison, who, in Jimmy's eyes, represents the upper classes that are keeping him down.

Jimmy believes that love is pain, and to a large extent, this determines his relationship with Alison. Far from love being something to be enjoyed, a source of healthy human pleasure, it is something difficult, something to be endured, a chore. It takes strength and guts, thinks Jimmy, the same kind of fortitude required to maintain a constant posture of anger and defiance against a society he truly detests.

What is the theme in "Look Back in Anger"?

There are several themes in A Look Back in Anger, but I think the most obvious is class/social structures of society and how the terms that come along with them affect people and their everyday lives. Jimmy and Alison are, at first, probably pulled together by some attraction towards each other, but only to have it solidified because Jimmy envies where Alison comes from and she being upper/middle class tries to rebel against that by marrying someone "beneath" her own social class. Her parents are not pleased by Alison's choice of husband, again going back to the class theme. Essentially, the class pressures tear Alison and Jimmy apart,because Jimmy is so bitter by his own circumstances, being "less than" Alison and also by not being able to live up to his potential by using his education as a means to better himself. Jimmy is so affected by his circumstances that he is abusive to Alison verbally/emotionally/psychologically. They come to terms with their relationship in the end, but it is a far cry from being anywhere near a happily ever after ending and probably more out of a comfort issue they have grown to have towards each other.

You could also take the angle of relationships and discuss how relationships affect people's actions. You could explore Alison, her reasons for coming back to Jimmy after the abuse. You could discuss what pulls Jimmy and Helena together after Helena is one of Jimmy's least favorite people.