Historic background

The play Look back in anger was written in 1956 by John Osborne and today it is considered to be controversial, provocative, contemporary, intriguing... although it's 50 years old.

So what makes the play so alive and popular and what is behind it? In order to understand that we must look at the background and at the time when it was written. The WW2 ended in 1945 and in the early fifties Europe and GB were stil building, reconstructing and emotionally and economically recovering from the war. There was poverty, no money and nothing to buy. There was food rationing /food on cards/, no ready-made dresses. domestic electric appliances were scarce except for radios and televisions and the mood was depressing. There was apathy and a feeling of helplessness.

GB began to lose its empire and colonies became independent, its power diminished and slowly the economy recovered, allowing middle-class people to live better for the first time, but not the working class which was still very poor. The upper class never really suffered any shortages.

But there were dramatic changes on the horizon. It was the time of James Dean, Grace Kelly, Elvis Presley and slowly the young generation found the way out of it. There were songs such as "Rock around the clock" which marked the new era: realism, liberalism, new age, a reaction against idealistic view of love and life.

So Osborbne's play represents the milestone between the post war era and the modern world. He wanted to "make people feel again" by arousing their anger because that's how people reacted to it. He wanted to stimulate emotion saying "to become angry is to care", to feel. He's the representative of "the angry young men", who were suffocated by the society because they felt angry but so helpless. They saw a lot of things wrong in the society, but couldn't do anything and this feeling of helplessness drove them to insanity. Jimmy Porter is their representative and he wants to wake the audience, the public, the nation.