The aim of this paper is to critically look at the figure of this new ‘anti-hero’ to establish how the ‘angry-young man’ conforms to the patriarchal society in John Osborne’s 1950’s kitchen sink drama ‘Look Back in Anger’. This play has strongly raised voice for gender ideologies and class distinctions, where Alison Porter belongs to the upper-class society and Jimmy Porter belongs to the lower-middle-class society. Alison may be socially superior based on her upper-class status, but Jimmy conveys superiority based on his masculine gender. Here, Jimmy is the representative of patriarchy, and he symbolises the general condition of Britain’s lower-middle-class society, while both Alison and Helena are representatives of the matriarchal authority, and they symbolise the upper-class society of Britain in the 1950s. It is Jimmy’s search for a social identity in post–World War II, individual masculine identity, his transformation of class hatred into sexual hatred and his misogynistic attitudes that are the central subject matters of this paper. In ‘Look Back in Anger’, one can witness a complete intermingling of class and gender relation which raises questions about the role of these aspects in contemporary society, which this paper intends to explore.
Arijit Mandi (Tue,) studied this question.