Jimmy can't do much to change society, he takes out his anger on his wife, Alison, who comes from an upper-middle-class background. At times, Alison represents to Jimmy just about everything he detests about 1950s British society. To a large extent, this accounts for the viciousness of the verbal abuse he regularly dishes out to his put-upon, longsuffering wife.

John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger introduced at least two new phrases to the English language. One is "kitchen sink drama," a play which explores the mundane realities of working-class life. The other is "angry young man," an expression which is self-explanatory.

The play's protagonist, Jimmy Porter, is the original and quintessential angry young man. He is intended as the voice of his generation: too young to have fought in the war, too well-educated for the simple work and tedious life he has to endure, aimless and discontented, chafing under the restraints of an outdated social system. He looks back in anger at the ineluctable forces that have landed him in this position, but wherever he looks, he is certain to be angry.

Anger is Osborne's subject. It is only fitting that it should be the stated theme of his best-known play. There are obvious parallels between John Osborne and Jimmy Porter, in terms of background, education, temperament and the targets of their wrath. When Osborne died, the Daily Telegraph's obituarist noted:

As Osborne's tirades poured forth, and as he continued to create characters eaten up by disillusion, the suspicion grew that the real object of his scorn and contempt was himself. As early as 1959 the theatre critic Harold Hobson noted: "Osborne has been his own worst enemy. Self-loathing appears to be a driving force of his art. He should control it: he is not as bad as he thinks."

The title refers to the characters' attitudes towards their lives in general, but Jimmy's in particular. There is a sense that life is passing them by, that they are growing older without things getting better, that their relationships had possibilities at the beginning that they don't have now, and so on. All of these generate a generalize resentment/anger in the play.

There are also a number of socially oriented comments that indicate a kind of generalized historical anger, often about change. For example, early in the play Jimmy mentions reviews that are half written in French (in an English paper). This change makes him feel stupid. Alison's parents were very angry at her marriage, and the couple often took pleasure in crossing social lines.

But again, it is Jimmy specifically whose past is most marked by anger. In Act II he talks about watching his father die, and he says, "You see, I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry—angry and helpless. And I can never forget it."

This past anger is shaping his life, and their lives.
Greg

I think the title of this play relates to the way that we have all spoken in anger and let anger rule our actions and tongues in various points in our lives, and often in the relationships that mean most to us. #2 has already quoted the most famous and most shocking lines from this excellent play which capture the way that desire, love, hatred and anger are often so closely intertwined that we struggle to differentiate between them and to separate them.

The title of the play "Look Back in Anger" is meaningful in many different ways. Even though the play's action focuses upon a love triangle and the feelings associated with an adulterous relationship, one could support a different relationship with the title.

many times, people hear how important it is to forgive and forget. That being said, sometimes it is simply not that easy. Therefore, the title of the play makes my consider things from my past in a different light. Many times in my life, I look back in anger at the things I have suffered through, put up with, and refused to forgive.

Many of the lines from the play shocked the audiences who  watched it.

“If only something—something would happen to you, and wake you out of your beauty sleep! If you could have a child, and it would die. Let it grow, let a recognisable human face emerge from that little mass of India rubber and wrinkles. Please—if only I could watch you face that. I wonder if you might even become a recognisable human being yourself. But I doubt it.”

How many of us have said something just as horrible and shocking to another person. Even then, regardless of the statement made, the pain we are sure we caused out of revenge, we find it hard to forgive them. We look back in anger and always will.

The aim of the play is to show the way in which the closed and stratified British class system creates anger in working-class people like Jimmy Porter. Though Jimmy is an intellectual with a university education, he is kept out of the system that promotes people to high-paying, high-status jobs because he is from the working class and did not attend an elite university. In 1950s Britain, high-status jobs were largely reserved for people who were born into the upper class.

As a result, Jimmy is a bitter, mean man who vents much of his anger on his upper-crust wife, Alison. The audience wonders if Jimmy's anger is justified at times, as he is merciless towards her. The play makes the audience think about whether Jimmy might be a better man in a different society in which he did not have to work as a candy vendor in an open-air market.

In the 1950s in England, life had settled down from the trauma of WWII and had returned to the "status quo".  The class structure that had dominated the country since the 16th century and the Victorian social standards that had - but had not - been abandoned, were firmly entrenched.  A conflict existed between the "appearance" meant for society and the true nature of a person's feelings - do those feelings really exist if the person is too formal to express them?

Jimmy expresses himself a bit too freely, but as the protagonist, he is used to show the audience the need to let go of apathy and reserve and to "feel".  Osborne wanted to demonstrate the need to reject the old "stiff upper lip" English stereotype in favor of a more fluid and interactive expression of anger, fear, love, etc..

Jimmy Porter was an angry man.  His politics were parallel to many of the people of England in 1956.  He would constantly gripe and preach about the “establishment” and the “elite” being in positions of power.  The politics according to Jimmy was about the

“class system, with its built-in preferential treatment for those at the top and exclusion from all power for those at the bottom, that makes Jimmy's existence 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 own, who is already a Member of Parliament, who will “make it to the top.”  

The working class was in the middle of a struggle to take over the leadership from the entitled families in England. This was during the Hitler era and many people were frightened about what was going to happen. 

“Jimmy says, ‘If the big bang does come, and we all get killed off, it won't be in aid of the old-fashioned, grand design. It'll just be for the Brave New-noting-very-much-thank-you, about as pointless and inglorious as stepping in front of a bus.’”