Look Back in Anger by John Osborne - The Incumbent Historical Debate Essay

Look Back in Anger by John Osborne - The superjacent Historical Debate about Affluence and Social Mobility in Britain - Essay Example11). This period foresaw a gargantuan change in the bargaining power hitherto accorded to the British work section. The high demands engendered by the war efforts allowed the working class to strive for a considerable change in their earning potential. Though the practically vaunted mixing of the affable classes was more a cherished ideal than an idea actually put into practice, it certainly gave way to much deeper concerns in the British class structure (Rebellato 1999, p. 11). On the one side where the working class resisted a possible reversion to the sidelined status of the interwar years, the upper middle class feared the newfound social mobility of the working class. It was a known fact that the British society of the late 50s was still deeply class conscious. Hence, no wonder the marital discord between poke and Alison to a great extent se t off from their diverse social-class origins. Jimmy is a young adherent of a newly upwardly mobile and meliorate working class. Though Jimmy has the benefit of a university education and he attained adulthood in the post war years, still he finds himself to be a missing link between the twain social classes. In that context he really finds it really excruciating and enervating to trace the season old enemy that is decaying and dying Imperialism in the guise of his wife Alison and her upper middle-class, military background. Yet, there is no denying the fact that the thing that bothers Jimmy even more is his loss of connection with the working class to which he mentally affiliates with. Hence, no wonder, Jimmy ends up becoming the victim of a partly self oblige and partly unavoidable social alienation, which was common to many young people from the working class in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Kellaway 1999, p. 39). Consequently, Jimmy finds himself in the times and the space where the past and the place tend to cusp into an intricate amalgam of confused class affiliations and aspirations as is amply conveyed when he affirms, I suppose people of our generation arent able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that through for us, in the thirties and the forties, when we were still kids. ...There arent any good brave causes left (Osborne 1982, p. 84). However, it goes without saying that this funny house caused by the mixing of classes and the commensurate social mobility was not merely a localized event, but quite a phenomenon that unfolded in the background of much large changes (Kellaway 1999, p. 39). Amidst this unavoidable social mobility, many of the characters in the act as are ironically caught up in the past (Kellaway 1999, p. 39). Jimmy vividly remembers his working class childhood and the suffering associated with the slow death of his father. On the other side Colonel Redfern obsessively remembers his days as an agent of colonial ism in India, the days that had fast drifted apart. All the segments of the society in a way mourned or resented the ephemeral of an era that was never to come again. This predicament is aptly grasped by Alison as she says, Youre hurt because everything is changed. Jimmy is hurt because ever