Jimmy regularly takes out his frustration on his long-suffering wife, Alison. He subjects her to regular bouts of verbal abuse, creating a deeply unpleasant domestic atmosphere from which Alison eventually escapes—albeit for a relatively brief period.

Part of the problem seems to be that Jimmy has an enormous chip on his shoulder concerning the gap in social class between himself and his wife. Alison appears to come from an upper middle-class background—her father is a retired senior army officer—and this acts as a red rag to the bull that is lower-middle-class Jimmy.

Jimmy can't seem to find a place in society despite his obvious intelligence and high level of education and blames his lowly position in life on people like Alison's father. As far as Jimmy's concerned, it's stuck-up snobs like Colonel Redfern who are holding him back, preventing him from achieving his true potential.

In this sense, Jimmy is the archetypal "angry young man," part of the post-war generation that felt that Britain was stagnating—culturally, politically, and economically—due to the continued domination of the old upper-class elite. Jimmy deeply resents the fact that he's related by marriage to a member of that elite and so takes out all his anger, frustration, and bitterness on Alison.