Book Characters That Outright Angered Me. Part 1
Have you ever read a book that outright made you feel things, you know those feelings that swallow you up and you feel the need to somehow take up a light match and set the book on fire?! LOOK BACK IN ANGER is one of such books.
A stage play written by John Osborne. I must commend Osborne on what he was trying to achieve with his protagonist because - he did good. Jimmy is the most annoying character that I've ever read, moreso for a protagonist. Imagine reading a book with a lead character who does everything he can to make you hate him and you just have to keep reading because well - you're a 'true reader' and you must see the end of the story even if it kills you.
The writing is good as far as plays goes especially for one written in the 50's with Jimmy bringing the story to significance by his obnoxious antics. The theme also can be said to reflect largely the society(England) as at then and perhaps Osborne was only being true to himself and representing what he knew best about the society he lived. But whatever inspired his story real or imagined or whatever he had in mind or was trying to portray or not, Look Back In Anger made many-a-reader well...literally look back at the book in anger after reading - some readers like myself many years after still.
This is a critical analysis/review and was first written on 28, Mar 2014.
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Look back in anger is one of those books that make you question a lot of things. Being the first play I'll be reading in over a decade I had absolutely no idea what to expect. It started as quickly as it begun. John Osborne's riveting style helped bring the characters to life, so real that at one point I actually imagined myself onstage with them. The characters, from Jimmy to Allison and even the mousy Cliff are like moving breathing beings on a stage somewhere in England and I an audience member peeking into their weird little lives.
It became very clear early on that I wasn't going to like Jimmy. He brought out something in me, something I never knew existed (as cliched as that may sound). On many occasions whilst reading, I wanted to reach into the book, walk right up on stage and slap the living daylights out of him. Phew! Very few authors made me feel like John Osborne did with this book. It started early on, the quick manner of choice words, the language, all contribute to drawing the reader in to Jimmy's bashfulness. And through all these, we get to see a selfish man who cares little for his wife, Alison. From the manner he speaks about her family – her brother, the hurtful words he uses to describe her mother without as much as a flinch, to the way he speaks about her friends - all reveal a ruthless sharp tongued fellow. And one could just see that he's a ticking time bomb. Provoked or not, Jimmy has something to say, and it is usually coated with nastiness. Like I mentioned earlier, it was quite obvious the sort of person Jimmy is from the moment the play begins. I suppose Osborne was gunning for a picture of a deceitful and sort of uncouth man, who hides under the guise of honesty to be obnoxious and he wasted no time in introducing him. There was no fanfare or pre-warning, it was just - bang! And the reader is hit with this nasty mean man. Cliff on the other hand, is an exact opposite, while Alison hid under a mask for most of the time - wrapped up as love or should I say misplaced devotion; I suppose like many abused women. And behind this mask I dare say she hides and tries to many times successfully bounce of Jimmy's lethal tongue. Jimmy's anger and aggression is visible early on in page 11:
JIMMY: I didn’t ask you that. I said –
CLIFF: Leave the poor girlie alone. She’s busy.
JIMMY: Well, she can talk, can’t she? You can talk, can’t you? You can express an opinion. Or does the White Woman’s Burden make it impossible to think?
ALISON: I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening properly.
JIMMY: You bet you weren’t listening. Old Porter talks, and everyone turns over and goes to sleep. And Mrs Porter gets ’em all going with the first yawn.
I also sort of got an underlying feeling that something other than what was being presented was going on. Allison just like most women in an abusive relationship do not know the difference between all the abuses there is. Jimmy could bash her head in accidentally and even deliberately and she would still make excuses for him, and the next moment she would become all jelly in his hands as he holds her, forgetting in an instant what he said or did and didn't do.
Jimmy’s abuse extends to not just her family but also to Cliff; his best friend and their housemate. No one is spared.
JIMMY: What do you want to read it for, anyway? You’ve no intellect, no curiosity. It all just washes over you. Am I right?
CLIFF: Right.
JIMMY: What are you, you Welsh trash?
Pg 49.
He made a rather profound observation (at least it appears so, though I must say in all honesty it was his only intellectual phrase) about Alison's brother Nigel on page 20.
JIMMY: And nothing is more vague about Nigel than his knowledge. His knowledge of life and ordinary human beings is so hazy, he really deserves some sort of decoration for it - a medal inscribed "For Vaguery in the Field.”
Insulting phrases such as the above often disguised as observation was Jimmy's favourite past time. It may well really be true but then again we didn't get to meet Nigel. However, going by how he was described, it provided an insight as to Jimmy’s joy in character assassination; another example of his many evil talents. My grouse with that would then be the vital part where he fails to see the fault in his own stars but bright eyed enough to notice all the problems with others. He went on to say still talking about Nigel that "The only thing he can do - seek sanctuary in his own stupidity." Going on to generalize that people like Nigel have no capacity to learn any more new thing because they've enlarged whatever alternatives they have more than their tiny brains could grasp. Phrases which undoubtedly showcase him as a one-man-show-wonder of a verbal abuser disguised as serious character reader. He's not saying whatever he's saying because he cares but rather to demean. Jimmy's condescending attitude towards Allison is uncomfortably discomforting that one is tempted to get right into the book or right on stage and knock his head with a huge rock written: ‘reality’ on it. And one of such occasions is in page 37 towards the end of Act II.
ALISON: (vehemently). Oh why don’t you shut up, please!
JIMMY: Oh, my dear wife, you’ve got so much to learn. I only hope you learn it one day. If only something – something would happen to you, and wake you out of your beauty sleep!...pg 37
Jimmy also had a comical manner of speaking which is anything but funny, which I suspect isn't funny to him too. And a perfect example would be:
'(He is talking for the sake of it, only half listening to what he is saying)'
I dare say he suspects me because I refuse to treat him either as a clown or as a tragic hero. He’s like a man with a strawberry mark – he keeps thrusting it in your face because he can’t believe it doesn’t interest or horrify you particularly. Pg.36 Allison's relationship with Cliff is a little undefined in terms of where he stands with Jimmy's abuse of her and what he expects her as a friend to do or as Jimmy's wife to do in the face of all the abuse. I saw him as a wimp. A wingless bird so to speak. Though in his defense towards the end, it seems like he sort of recollects who he is and what it is he wants out of life other than hanging around Jimmy and eating and breathing his insults, dished out playfully or otherwise. The relationships in LBIA evolve around various dimensions that at a stage I couldn't keep up. Like any good book it was thoroughly flawed. I also got a sense of metaphorical tone in the writing on the part of John Osborne that threw me a bit. I wasn't sure if he wanted the readers and audience to notice that and take note or just make sense of it as they read along. Examples would be in places such as where Jimmy would say something really horrible and then expect Alison to react and then he would get really angry when she did and then get angry again when she didn't. Like in page 22.
JIMMY: Allison leans against the board and closes her eyes. As Jimmy vented his usual barrage of insults. The lady Pusillanimous has been promised a brighter easier world than old sextus can ever offer her. Hi, Pusey! What say we get the hell down to the Arena, and maybe feed ourselves to a couple of lions, huh? ALISON: God help me if he doesn't stop, I'll go out of my mind in a minute. JIMMY: Why don't you? That would be something, anyway(crosses to chest of drawers R.) But I haven't told you what it means yet, have I? (Picks up a dictionary) and then he reads out the meaning of the word Pusillanimous and goes on and on finally ending with 'Hi, Pusey! When's your next picture? (Jimmy watches her, waiting for her to break. For no more than a flash, Alison's face seems to contort, and it looks as though she might throw her head back, and scream. But it passes in a moment. She is used to these carefully rehearsed attacks, and it doesn't look as though he'll get his triumph tonight. She carries on with her ironing.) His attempt at trying to explain his behaviour by attributing it to watching his father die as a young 12 year old was almost believable yet lame. Because what he does next defies logic. His whole life is as a result of everybody's problem with him except his problem with himself. Why should he see a problem when he has none, right? He tears Allison to pieces in one moment and the next he's burning in raw desire to devour her. How classic! There are many dynamics in the relationships in the book. From Jimmy to Allison, Alison to Jimmy, and even Helena to Jimmy and vice versa, and between Cliff and Jimmy. I couldn't understand Alison and Cliff's friendship (I mean they kissed at one stage
Cliff: Thank you, you beautiful, darling girl. (He puts his arm round her waist, and kisses her. She smiles, and gives his nose a tug. Jimmy watched from his chair) pg 23; and at another time when she was leaving with her dad the Colonel, what's up with that? And the fact that Jimmy didn't seem to mind was all the more confusing. For an abusive man like him I would think that he would've thrown a fit and probably wring Cliff's neck until all the blood was drained from his face and there was no pulse felt in him. Helena could best be described in one word - bitch! Someone who pretends to care about a friend and tries to save her from an abusive relationship but turns around and steals the said abusive man. Someone who has verbally abused her as well. I just couldn’t comprehend their attraction towards each other.
In page 86 HELENA: (steadily). I love you. then further down HELENA: (softly). Oh my darling - JIMMY: Either you're with me or against me. HELENA: I've always wanted you - always! They kiss again. She makes it quite clear that she's always loved and wanted him, which throws the question, why? Because he's abusive or had she perhaps noticed something about him in the past, something endearing that drew her to him? Something that John Osborne failed to let the readers in on?! Like I said it was a flawed book, but that was one flaw too many. Or did Osborne perhaps subscribe to the notion that women were naturally drawn to bad boys? One as annoying as Jimmy was? I mean, Helena put in all her heart into the relationship, I assume that helped her with ‘figuring’ out (like it was a task assigned to her) the source of Jimmy's problem; in page 90 and reveled in her discovery as she revealed it to Alison "He was born out of his time." Which Alison agreed to with a rather lame "I know." Before Helena continued with her assessment of the root of Jimmy's angry behaviour ending with "He doesn't know where he is, or where he's going. He'll never do anything, and he'll never amount to anything." Which was rather apt by the way. And with Alison’s sudden return she arrives to an equally rather sudden realization that what she's been doing with Jimmy is wrong and go ahead to confess that she's known all along that it was wrong! It was like she had been in a trance and Alison’s return broke the spell and she couldn’t wait to bolt, literally. That scene made absolutely no sense to me. Everyone in Jimmy’s life makes excuses for him. Even the Colonel, Alison's father whom Jimmy loathes is complicit in this theory of a misunderstood Jimmy, one who wasn't given enough chances to showcase anything else he's got. Including his marriage to his daughter due to his wife's crooked means to sabotage their marriage by not giving it a chance to thrive. But I was left feeling that everyone would've been bought over by Jimmy except Alison's mother, whom we never get to meet. No mother can stand an abusive son-in-law however charming. I suspect she may well continue in her dislike of him and never get to observe another side of him and be won over. The only time Jimmy shows any form of emotion towards anyone other than his angry feelings is when he speaks about his dad whom he had to sit and watch next to his bed as he died. Another would be Mrs Tanner his friend Hugh Tanner's mom, whom incidentally he also had to watch die like he did his dad. So when Alison returned having lost their baby through miscarriage, he realized they now shared a deep connection which by the way Alison pointed out to him. Suddenly, the emotional connection he's always wanted, for her to feel the sort of pain he's always felt, the pain of losing someone you love, was present. Now they were even, which kind of startled him when Alison broke down in realization of that emotional connection. Look Back In Anger leaves you with what you want to take from it. See Jimmy as an angry abusive man and you're free to leave with that. View him as a victim of a childhood tragedy which deeply affected him and prevented him from having meaningful relationships with people (though I would say he did have one with Mrs Tanner whom he never forgot even after his friend disappeared) and you wouldn't be far from the reality either. But other than those we get nothing much else from Jimmy except that he was vile and had an acid tongue that spewed words coated with bitter leaves. Someone I'd rather not meet, victim or not. I'm not convinced that his anger and outbursts are justified in any way. And since he never displayed any form of mental illness nor was it alluded to, then I'll say that John Osborne did a great job in painting a picture of a classic abuser, charming and all. Don't they all have valid excuses for their nasty behaviour?
