Look back the Misogyny in Osborne’s Anger (Academic paper)

 

Look back the Misogyny in Osborne’s Anger 

Abstract:

Anger can be a positive and useful emotion if it is expressed appropriately. The outburst of anger may have its origin from different contexts but Osborne had dealing with the anger of the past and the play is recounting the anger legacy of Jimmy. The dramatist was successful in intersecting elements of his (Jimmy’s) working class agony into anger. The protagonist, Jimmy is presented as an angry young man who becomes the victim of his own disillusionment and despair.   In the process of venting out Anger, the agonized child born out of oppression had turned into arrogance. This working class anger has often been race-blind, class-blind, and gender-blind resulting in short-sightedness in feminist, Marxist, and ideological interpretations and the same happened in Osborne where he calls on apples to Oranges. The aim of this writing is to derive out the elements which blinded the readers or dramatist to look back at the elements of toxic masculine arrogance in the name of working class anger.

Main Paper

            The canonisation of the texts in English often has many intersectional reasons and it’s surprising that the majority of the mainstream literature is ‘man’s’. To be more significant ‘Male’s’. Woman’s writing yet competent was put a feminist tag rather than considering canonical in the mainstream literary space. Surprisingly, the texts branded as ‘feminist’ have a lot of critics to critique it for their quality whereas, on the other side, the texts which are called to be canonical (though Chauvinist) drape some other ideology and get presented before the audience in a different lens. Osborne’s play “Look Back in Anger” is one of such which is branded essentially radical play about our class-ridden society. The play is credited for being so different from the other plays in the middle fifties because of the ‘Stark realism’ it shows but the nature of the play seems far from this argument. It brings “unbridled abusiveness and sheer savagery on to the stage for the first time on the stage”[1]. It being called the working Class anger is the beauty of blinding the oppression. Osborne uses the insubstantial class element in the play as a tool to attack Women disguised in pseudo-social construct.

            The play “is a one-man play per excellence”[2]. From the beginning of the play, Jimmy is the only Heroic character in the play. The heroic character is given the absolute liberty to vent out his oppression. He goes to the extent of using a very odious language to anyone who talks against him and in extreme when it’s an woman and it has no justified reason. The hero is like “one sun around which all the other characters revolve as mere satellites. One single character is given all the strong language (often called ‘the good lines’), all the abuse, the invective, the caustic ‘humour’[3]. The audience has to take it for granted that the central character, Osborne’s mouthpiece, has the right to make any attack. Taylor has a very different opinion on this working class hero. She interprets, “It is difficult to see Jimmy as a heroic person, but he is a self – inflicted exile from the world, drawing strength from his own weakness and joy from his own misery”[4]

            Linda Hall discusses in her essay on Sex and class in John Osborne's Look back in Anger about this individual monarchy throughout the play. In this, she explains how the author skilfully carves the misogyny out of the play where the opposition is never given a chance to defend itself and allows the ranting angry young man to grow into “a figure that ‘outherods Herod’ to hog the play makes for very static drama and demonstrates thereby a singularly feeble and untalented approach to the dramatic craft.”[5] This emotion of anger portrayed as a working class emotion by the critics would definitely mean that “Anger seems to be a male prerogative”[6] and women should face that without any resistance and get back to their husband’s bed because Osborne didn’t allow women space enough to express their anger.  This one sided exercise of misogyny in the name of “vocal anger starts from the very beginning of the play and goes through many forms- invectives, parody, malice, mimicry, ruthless provocation and outright unbelievable cruelty right up to the end of the play” [7]

            In return to keeping up to all the humiliation and remaining calm, Alison’s “silence also angers him greatly which is the result of his incessant talking and he is unaware of its cause. Hence, he sarcastically calls her “monument to non-attachment” and tells Cliff: “Nothing I could do would provoke her”. Jimmy cannot understand that her silence is unnatural and rather forced by him”[8]. He comments about her silence from the very beginning of the play –

“She’s a great one for getting used to things. If she were to die, and awake up in a paradise – after the first five minutes, she’d have got used to it ”[9]

            Her silence in the face of Jimmy’s persistent provocation is a form of protest and to escape from this mental suffering she has to seek refuge in ironing and other household works all the time. For that too, Jimmy lashes out her for not reading a paper. The progressive man forgets that he and she are two different individuals and everyone has the right to do away with their life. If she tries to react, throwing a cup to the floor to vent out her anger he complains that she lacks backbone. He forgets that he is just a companion but acts like marrying one is like giving a license to be the slave. The chauvinistic nature does not recognise that he and her are two different creatures and this so called left progressive man unable to comprehend her rights is the irony.

            It’s better to call it Look back in rage than anger because Jimmy finds fault in everything that others do, especially women. He creates a fragile and tense atmosphere at the house that everyone fears him. It is evident when Alison says, “I dread him coming into the room”[10] The cause of his outburst of anger is “no real or imagined crimes but the communication collapses between them for no serious reasons”[11]. The anger and humiliation to Alison was not only at a mental level but also physical and it’s evident in the play where he pushes Cliff and Alison to the iron board by which Alison’s hand is burnt. The working class Jimmy answers very inhumane saying that he did it on purpose. “He is a tyrannical husband who drives his wife to despair by bullying her”[12]

            Jimmy’s anger at the start looks at an individual level but as the play progresses Alison is not seen as an individual but a representative of a whole class, not just women but upper class women. It is evident by his changing generalised rants with the common noun “woman”. The problem of this Class interpretation is not only with the readers and critics. Even Alison in the play mistakes Chauvinism to agony due to oppression in Act II, Scene I where she says –

“Together they were frightening. They both came to regard me as a sort of hostage from those sections of society they had declared war on.”[13]

            “If male-female relations are constructed in Class – terms, men are the ruling class, as Augusta Strindberg explains in his preface to Miss Julie – the aristocratic Julie is sexually ‘mastered’ by her father’s servant ‘simply because he is a man. Sexually he is an aristocrat. So Jimmy is a sexual aristocrat”[14]. So, it’s clear by here Jimmy has no clear Class consciousness as he claims, and to put it more clear his class anger only lies with Alison and her mother but not with her father Colonel. Redfern. It is evident in the play when Alison laments –

“He doesn’t seem to mind you so much. In fact, I think he rather likes you. He likes you because he can feel sorry for you”[15]

            It is fact that it is Alison’s father who starts and brings up all the problems relating to his marriage and Jimmy seems so negotiable in neglecting the Redfern since he’s a born male like Jimmy.

            Since the start of the play, Jimmy’s misogyny is clearly seen throughout the play. It is a fact that Alison is an independent woman of thought. That is the prime reason she left her Garden of Eden and landed in an uncanny room with jimmy expecting love. She is, of course, a symbol of resistance to breaking the bonds of tradition in the upper class women but Jimmy calls her “Lady Pusillanious” in a very triggering way that she lacks determination and audacity but it is Jimmy’s ideology that seems to be at the crossroads. “Alison is a trophy that he has won in the battle of classes. Jimmy’s misogyny becomes a substitute of class struggle. An abusive and aggressive masculinity becomes a replacement for the lost class identity”[16]

            Jimmy being violent always regards women as predators, crude and cruel creatures. This shows not only Jimmy’s hatred but also fear for women. To quote a few –

“Why do we let these woman bleed us to death”[17] (Act III, Scene I)

“Did you ever realize what a refined sort of Butcher she is. (turns in) Did you ever see some dirty old Arab, sticking his fingers into some mess of lamb fat and gristle? Well, she’s just like that”[18] (Act I, Scene I)

            Though he creates images of women with images of violence, death, and decay he did not stop himself from painting the picture of a woman as weak, meek, and many such generalised notions of the patriarchal society. It seems Jimmy left no chance in criticizing women. He calls women fragile in strength commenting on women energy as “frail little fists”[19] and asking Cliff, “Have you ever noticed how noisy women are”[20].

            Jimmy suffers from a confused personality. On one hand, he attracts women sexually but is not comfortable living with them on the other hand. It is because of his confused ideology which is outdated and Helena right calls that “he’s still in the middle of French revolution”[21]. He even treats virginity as a taboo and mocks them with that and Alison never understands what he actually wants. It’s hard to find out because he never gets into a dialogue. The majority of his presence in the play is long monologues that show his monarchical nature.

            Interpreting the play with the mask of Class anger would be an attempt to mask readers from the real issues. Concluding someone as the protagonist by painting a sympathetic picture seems to be the technique of the author to ease pity for the hero. He being Victim weighs less than his beastly acts as victimizer are placed on the other side.

***

Works Cited

 

Brooke, Stephen. Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain during the 1950s. Journal of Social History, vol. 34, no. 4, 2001. pp. 773–795. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3789418. Accessed 19 July 2021. (Web)

Gilleman, Luc M. The logic of Anger and despair in John Osborne: A casebook. Ed. Patricia D. Deninson. Newyork: Garland. 1997 (Print)

Hayman, Ronald. John Osborne. London: Heinemann. 1970 (Print)

Haque, Salma. Alison Porter in Look Back in Anger: Is She Responsible for her Sufferings?. IIUC Studies. 10. 65. 10.3329/iiucs.v10i0.27427. 2016. (Web)

Linda Hall. Sex and Class in John Osborne's Look back in Anger. Women's Studies International Forum. Volume 7, Issue 6, 1984. pp.505-510. ISSN 0277-5395, https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-5395(84)90022-0. (Web)

Mukherjee, Sunanda. Why is Jimmy Porter Angry in Look Back in Anger: A Collection of Critical Essays. Amrita et all(ed.) Calcutta: Avantgarde Press. 2001(Print)

Muhammad, Rebwar. The Protagonist As a Victim and Victimizer in Osborne's look back in Anger. Journal of Koya University. ISSN. 2073-0713 (Print)

Osborne, John. Look Back in Anger. Pearson. p.42 (Print)

Works Consulted

 

Francis, Martin. The Domestication of the Male? Recent Research on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century British Masculinity. The Historical Journal, vol. 45, no. 3, 2002. pp. 637–652. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3133500. Accessed 19 July 2021. (Web)

İzmir, Sibel. When Anger Turns into Rage: Displacement in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger. ANQ A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles Notes and Reviews. 10.1080/0895769X.2020.1799740. 2020 (Web)

Kroll, Morton. The Politics of Britain's Angry Young Men. Social Science,vol. 36, no. 3, 1961. pp. 157–166. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41884871. Accessed 19 July 2021. (Web)

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[1] Linda Hall. Sex and class in John Osborne's Look back in Anger. Women's Studies International Forum, Volume 7, Issue 6, 1984. p.505

[2] Hayman, Ronald. John Osborne. London: Heinemann. 1970. p.17

[3] Linda Hall. p.505

[4] Muhammad, Rebwar. The Protagonist As a Victim and Victimizer in Osborne's look back in Anger. Journal of Koya University. ISSN. 2073-0713. p.20

[5] Ibid, p.506

[6] Mukhopadhyay, Nabanita, Look of hatred: Misogyny in Look Back in Anger  in Look back in Anger. Pearson. p. 128

[7] Mukherjee, Sunanda. Why is Jimmy Porter Angry  in Look Back in Anger: A Collection of Critical Essays. Amrita et all(ed.) Calcutta: Avantgarde Press. 2001. p.12

[8] Haque, Salma. Alison Porter in Look Back in Anger: Is She Responsible for her Sufferings?. IIUC Studies. 10. 65. 10.3329/iiucs.v10i0.27427. 2016. p.66

[9] Osborne, John. Look Back in Anger. Pearson. p.42

[10] Ibid, p.45

[11] Muhammad, Rebwar. p.19

[12] Gilleman, Luc M. The logic of Anger and despair in John Osborne: A casebook. Ed. Patricia D. Deninson. Newyork: Garland. 1997. p. 33

[13] Osborne, John. p.42

[14] Mukhopadhyay, Nabanita. p.124

[15] Osborne, John. p.69

[16] Brooke, Stephen. “Gender and Working Class Identity in Britain during the 1950s.” Journal of Social History, vol. 34, no. 4, 2001. p. 778

[17] Osborne, John. p.19

[18] Ibid, p.89

[19] Ibid, p.58

[20]  Ibid, p.58

[21] Ibid, p.96