T.R. SULEYMAN DEMIREL UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF WESTERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SATIRE IN SELECTED PLAYS OF JOHN OSBORNE

Ph.D. Thesis

Abdul Aljaleel Fadhıl Jamaıl AL-JAMAIL 1340224505

Supervisor Prof. Dr. Ömer ŞEKERCİ

ISPARTA-2019

T.C. SÜLEYMAN DEMİREL ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ BATI DİLLERİ VE EDEBİYATI ANABİLİM DALI İNGİLİZ DİLİ VE EDEBİYATI BİLİM DALI

JOHN OSBORNE'UN SEÇİLMİŞ OYUNLARINDAKİ SOSYAL VE POLİTİK HİCİV

DOKTORA TEZİ

Abdul Aljaleel Fadhıl Jamaıl AL-JAMAIL 1340224505

Danışman Prof. Dr. Ömer ŞEKERCİ

ISPARTA-2019

(AL-JAMAIL, Abdul Aljaleel Fadhıl Jamaıl, Social and Political Satire in Selected Plays of John Osborne, Ph.D Thesis, Isparta, 2019)

ABSTRACT

The core of this study is an enquiry into the rebel hero as reflected in the selected plays by John Osborne. It tries to discuss the dramatic climate in England in the aftermath of the Second World War, with special concentration on the factors influencing upon and leading to the emergence of the new English drama in the late fifties. The chapter deals with a brief analysis of the “Angry Young Men Movement” and the rebel or outsider figure in post-war English literature in terms of studying the different theories concerning his origin characteristics and the various causes motivating him to rebellion. The study attempts to investigate the rebel hero in Osborne's plays Look Back in Anger (1956), The Entertainer (1957), and Luther (1961) respectively The subject is pursued by investigating the various social, political, economic, and psychological causes inducing the main character in these texts to adopt a rebellious stance, the targets as well as the alternatives which Osborne's rebel sees as possible solutions to his problems. The study deals with political and social satire in those selected plays by John Osborne. Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer and Luther deal with political and social satire of the English society after the Second World War.

Keywords: Osborne, Post-war, Rebellion, Angry Young Men Movement, British Theatre, Satire

iii (AL-JAMAIL, Abdul Aljaleel Fadhıl Jamaıl, John Osborne'un Seçilmiş Oyunlarındaki Sosyal ve Politik Hiciv, Doktora Tezi, Isparta, 2019)

ÖZET

Bu çalışma, esas itibarıyla John Osborne’ın seçki oyunlarındaki asi karakteri ele almaktadır. Çalışma, ayrıca İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra İngiltere’de ortaya çıkan dramatik iklimi ele alarak bu yeni iklimin bin dokuz yüz ellili yıllarda oluşan yeni İngiliz dramını etkileyen faktörleri de ele almaktadır. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra İngiltere’de ortaya çıkan “Angry Young Men Movement” (Öfkeli Genç Adamlar Hareketi)’i analiz edilmektedir. Bu hareketteki asi karakterin yabancı bir karakter olarak nasıl isyankar olduğu ve onu isyankârlığa iten birçok nedenler ele alınmıştır. John Osborne’ın Look Back in Anger (1956), Entertainer (1957) ve Luther (1961) adlı eserlerindeki asi karakter figürleri sırasıyla ele alınmıştır. Yukarıda bahsi geçen eserlerdeki asi kahramanı isyana iten birçok sosyal, politik, ekonomik, dini ve psikolojik sebepler etraflıca araştırılmıştır. Osborne’ın asi karakterlerini sorunlarına değişik çözüm yolları bulmaya çalışırken görürüz. John Osborne’ın Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer ve Luther adlı seçki oyunlar İkinci Dünya Savaş’ından sonra İngiltere’de ortaya çıkan yeni akım tiyatro kapsamında sosyal ve politik hiciv yönünden incelenmiştir.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Osborne, Savaş sonrası, isyan, Öfkeli Genç Adamlar Hareketi, İngiliz Tiyatrosu, Hiciv

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

TEZ SAVUNMA SINAV TUTANAĞI ...... i YEMİN METNİ ...... ii ABSTRACT ...... iii ÖZET...... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... vi

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1. The Aim of the Study ...... 1 1.2. The Scope and Limitation of the Study ...... 2 1.3. The Method of the Study ...... 2 1.4. Introduction to English Drama ...... 4

CHAPTER II SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SATIRE

2.1. Introduction to Social and Political Satire in John Osborne’s Selected Works ...... 19 2.2. Look Back in Anger ...... 29 2.3. The Entertainer ...... 31 2.4. Luther ...... 32

CHAPTER III ANALYSIS OF JOHN OSBORNE’S PLAYS: LOOK BACK IN ANGER, THE ENTERTAINER, AND LUTHER

3.1. Look Back in Anger ...... 34 3.2. The Entertainer ...... 57 3.3. Luther ...... 77 CONCLUSION ...... 96 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 101 CV ...... 106 ÖZGEÇMİŞ ...... 107

v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deep thanks to my honourable supervisor, Prof. Dr. Ömer ŞEKERCİ for his kind assistance and encouragement, not to mention his infinite efforts to read over, finally amend the draft of this thesis, for without his kind supervision. I would not have written it. I followed and took into consideration all his invaluable remarks, suggestions and recommendations during the time when I wrote this dissertation. I should thank the staff members of the Department of English Language and Literature at Süleyman Demirel University. Finally, I would like to extend my deep appreciation to my family with love and sincere respect.

vi CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

John Osborne’s plays marked the beginning of a revolution in the theatre of post- World War II in Britain. It was regarded as the most immediately influential expression of the mood of the “Angry Young Men.” The period covering the decades of the 1950s, the 60’s and the 70’s, was one in British history where radical changes in all fields of knowledge were taking place and affecting, in one way or another, the cultural climate of the time and therefore the social vision of the writers. For example, the economy in the post war period (The Age of Austerity, 1945-50) was on the surface recovering but with a toll of an under fifth of the population lacking basic needs. Osborne was a modest young playwright, on the barge on the Thames that he shared with Anthony Creighton, 1956.

The theatre of the late sixties and seventies was in constant turmoil exploring its own limits and challenging what “bourgeois” theatre had taken all too granted. At the same time, the study of the author cannot be separated from that of his work, in as much as the study of the social and cultural upheavals affecting Britain and the rest of the world form the context where Osborne’s work arose. In this way, a searching inquiry into the relationship between his work and its social and cultural dimension is our aim pursued, since its full and specific original context challenges and informs the perception of ourselves in the starting decades of the twenty-first century.

1.1. The Aim of the Study

The study aims at:

1. Studying the social and political satire in some selected plays by Osborne. It provides the reader with a general knowledge of the sociological and cultural background in the selected plays and its implications for a better understanding of the theatre in Britain during the first decade of the new millennium.

1 2. Investigating the original specific character of the works analysed in their original context challenges.

3. Analysing the topic of social and political impact on the British Theatre during the post-war period when reform measures were implemented. It is the issue most related to class and gender and references to it are to be found in Osborne’s plays, all of which tackle the question of social mobility.

1.2. The Scope and Limitation of the Study

The study is limited to social and political satire in the selected plays: Look Back in Anger (1956), the Entertainer (1957), and Luther (1960). The research work falls into four chapters to explore the social and political dimensions to highlight the impact of Osborne in British theatre: Introduction (chapter one), Social and Political Satire (chapter two), an analysis of John Osborne’s Plays (chapter three), Conclusion (chapter four). We have limited our study to analyse those plays mentioned above which are rich in satirical elements.

1.3. The Method of the Study

The work on social and political satire has been undertaken by literary scholars telling us things about the nature and meaning of the imperial enterprise. To study the relationship between theatre and identity that will suggest to what extent Osborne’s plays were a form of political expression. To focus upon the controversial issue of ‘Anger’ in the light of what later came to be known as identity politics in the context of new writing in British drama, and how it questioned the reality of the immigration experience in this country. We have tried to highlight Osborne’s contribution to the English drama and the playwrights who followed him and the impact of his work on society as a whole. The plays’ overall commentary on British society (especially the 1950’s) has been explored. It deals with the approach consisting of reading and study of critical works as a methodological foundation, which helps to shape the cultural and social factors and implications. As in fiction and poetry, theme is the central idea expressed by a play. The analysis and support

2 required for its articulation demand a close look at the parts: the language, events, characters and outcome of the play. In previous decades, from the “Angry Young Men” of the late 1950’s to the in-yer face playwrights of the mid-1990’s, there was a sense of an avant-garde breakthrough and riding a new wave of artists writing and presenting the social reality on stage. It will be posited that an exploration of the significance of Osborne’s dramas on understanding the dominant and subordinate cultures of this time in British history is highly relevant, and that their relationship will be established within the cultural studies tradition and the emergence of youth subcultures and their meaning through drama. Considering that the correlation or even the coalescence of words and action is what most clearly distinguishes theatre from literature, a study of the language game of Osborne’s drama will be accounted for.

The study of the relationship of theatre and identity will suggest to what extent Osborne’s plays were a form of political expression. The controversial issue of “Anger” is focused upon in the light of what later came to be known as identity politics in the context of “New Writing” in British drama, which at the same time questioned the reality of the immigration experience in Britain. The Royal Court Theatre is one of the venues where it was born; it was what may be called “a white” theatre.

Two questions will be considered as starting point of the dissertation. The first one is formulated in the following way: How far does an audience have to go in thinking about what goes on in the characters’ heads to understand what is happening on stage? The second one is: And, how do all the facts, related to the cultural and social dimensions of the plays analysed in this work, change or influence our understanding as readers or audience of them?

In this cross-disciplinary study, social satire will be accounted for, since its concern with the analysis of the social construction of reality will help in the study of Osborne’s characters and their relation with society. Other disciplines considered are Social and Political Sciences, which will be of great help when analysing the work of John Osborne.

The methodology used in this dissertation consists of an in depth reading of the works of John Osborne and of the books which review them and assist in its elaboration,

3 especially monographs about the writer. This will eventually develop into a corpus of literary analysis worth considering in reaching a better understanding both of the writer and the characters created by him. The study of the social and cultural context of the decades when his plays were written, staged or taken to the media is a task that aims to be worthy of analysis, in the global framework of critical appreciation in the field of literary studies. It will also be explained what the end of official censorship in 1968 brought to the British stage.

The study is an attempt to reconstruct the political and social environment in which Osborne’s work was originally written and produced, tracing the development of some of the theories and approaches after the Second World War in England. Thus, for the method employed, we are primarily indebted to post-war British cultural studies. In this sense, the approach which has been followed has been influenced by the emphasis on the way cultural studies scholars have come to highlight contemporary ways of life, placing their efforts to a better understanding of the function of ideology and the material bases of artistic production, as well as their explicit political commitments. To sum it up, we have used textual analysis in this study. The qualitative approach has been adapted to this study.

1.4. Introduction to English Drama

English drama prior to 1956 was, unlike its continental counterpart, “a tepid and trivial art” (Krause, 1969:11). It was abandoned to the efforts of some dramatic poets of whom the major ones were Auden, Isherwood, T.S. Eliot and Christopher Fry. English stage in the early fifties was far from reflecting the real life of the ordinary Englishman, and was, furthermore, looked upon as a kind of refuge from the political and social atmosphere which predominated in England in the post-war years. (Banham, 1969: 11; Hunt, 1962: 150). Post-war English stage was:

raised on a diet of Rattigan, a world of wartime heroes ... decent middle class standards, inevitable butlers and valets, in a world that centered upon, fashionable London or the countryside in season… (Hunt, 1962: 156).

4 However, there were signs of revival initiated by two theatre groups: Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop and the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square. These were two new 'projects' in the modern English drama.

Joan Littlewood is “a director of exceptional talent and authority” (Ward, 1964: 119). She started her company, Theater Workshop, at the theatre Royal, Stratford, East London in 1953. Her theatre provided the English stage with a source of vitality by introducing what may be called the experimental theatre whose principles can be summarized as thus: To produce a play artistically, the text must be understood by all the companies through discussion, argument and experiment; true contact should exist between all the characters on the stage; and effective and impressive generalizations on the part of the actor should be completely abandoned (Marowitz; Milne, & Hale, Owen, (eds).1970: 132f).

To J. Littlewood, a great theatre does not depend solely on the individual genius of the writer, but also on the collaboration between all the artists concerned, i.e. actors, designers, composers, director as well as writer. Thus, she puts it "... writers must graft in company with matter artificial if we are to get what we want and what our people need, a great theatre” (Littlewood; qtd. in Marowitz, (eds.), 133).

Almost simultaneously with the institution of Littlewood’s Company, Theatre Workshop, a newly-formed company called the English Stage Company opened at the Royal Court Theatre. This theatre played a decisive role in the propagation and speedy advancement of new drama from 1956 thence wards similar to that which the same theatre had functioned for the introduction of Bernard Shaw's new drama fifty years before (Ward, 1964: 139).

When the English Stage Company performed its first play on April 2, 1956, it declared its intentions of being primarily a writer's theatre, performing new plays by new British dramatists in addition to classics from the contemporary theatre of the Continent in repertory.

5 The Stage Company came into existence through (Taylor, 1974: 34). The conjunction of two groups working for the same ends. Lord Harewood and the poet Ronald Duncan thought of forming a dramatic company which would offer a counterpart to the English Opera Group. Their first plans were that this company should give "a series of Sunday-evening performances along the lines of those given by the Repertory Players”, (Taylor, 1974: 34) but with the advice of its "financial guarantor", Neville Blond, things were organized to form a permanent company with a theatre of its own. Choice fell on George Devine to take on such a venture.

Devine had been trying with Tony Richardson, a young television director at the time, to set up a theatre company, with the aid of the Stratford Memorial Theatre, envisaging it as a London branch of that company” (Taylor, 1974: 34). Finally, the Royal Court Theatre was chosen to be a home for the new company. Devine’s advertisement in the Stage for new plays which would not be inhibited by purely commercial demands”, (Banham, 1969: 6) attracted at first only John Osborne's Look Back in Anger which was the play to be performed by the Stage Company after Angus Wilson's The Mulberry Bush and Arthur Miller's The Crucible . Look Back in Anger proved to be an artistic as well as a commercial success" upon the losses of which, the English Stage Company was able to sustain losses on other new material” (Banham, 1969: 6).

Because it announced to be a writer's theatre, the Royal Court Theatre was, consequently, open to all sorts of writers. Devine had no intentions of turning his company into a politically-oriented one. The Stage Company's one and only commitment was "to drama of quality”, (Taylor, 1966: 121) regardless of its religious, political or aesthetic tendencies. Its function was to provide the English play goer with the best new drama. Nevertheless, accusations have consistently been levelled against the company, claiming that it was biased to left-Wing drama in its choice of plays, these accusations, which would seem understandable considering that virtually every dramatist to emerge since 1965 would vote Labour if he voted at all are proved groundless, or-apparent from the list of Plays Company, has produced.

6 What is remarkable about the company's productions is the Catholicity of choice (Taylor, 1974: 36). The range of the company's foreign productions is very conspicuous. It has also been instrumental in launching some plays by almost every new British writer of note, thus taking over other companies' productions of plays by Harold Pinter, Arnold Weskers, Shelagh Delaney and Henry Livings, as well as attracting three new dramatists' (Ibid:, 327) apart from John Osborne: John Arden, Ann Jellicoe and N.F. Simpson. Each of the last four major ‘Royal Court Dramatists’ is different from the others so that there is hardly a simple category which can bring them under one school or genre. This fact ascertains the only criterion applied by the Royal Court, namely that each writer should produce work effective and valuable in its own terms (Ibid:, 37).

The two theatre groups formerly discussed-Theatre Workshop and English Stage Company - made two major alterations in the theatrical scene of Britain in the late fifties. First was the introduction of modern dramatists - both Continental and American - like Samuel Beckett, Eugene O’Neill, Garcia Lorca and Eugene Ionesco, thus providing the English stage with a new freedom by giving performances to plays written by dramatists from abroad.

The second change was a Left- Wing conversion and the tendency of the British theatre to Socialism. This was the result of the English discovery of the German dramatist, Bertolt Brecht and the introduction of some of his plays by his company (Berliner Ensemble) in London in 1956. With the discovery of Brecht, social realism was first introduced into British drama of the late fifties (Esslin, 1966: 64).

Brechtian influence on the English stage is to be found profusely from 1956 onwards, (Ibid:, 64). So that the period since 1956, may, without reserve be called the Brechtian era in the British theatre. (Banham, 1969:10) What attracted the younger generation of British theatrical artists to Brecht was his view of the theatre as a serious tool for progressive ideas, social realism, and political commitment as well as the recognition on his part that viable drama could not exist in a commercially dominated system (Ibid:, 63).

7 “In Brecht, the English dramatist found a writer who combined commitment with poetry aesthetic discipline with, dialectical rigor. To be "Brechtian”, then, was to be politically concerned, theatrically bold and artistically disciplined. It is little wonder, he became the national paragon.” (Marowitz, (ed.) 1970: 135).

Brechtian influence on British theatre in the mid-fifties came indirectly, and that is not through a direct contact with Brecht's own theories and dramatic works. Rather, his impact came through different second hand concepts and ideas about Brecht, an image of

Brecht created from misconceptions and misunderstandings (Esslin, 1966: 63).

Nevertheless, whether Brechtian influence on English drama was a true reflection of his work or not, it remained a matter of fact that this influence was more manifest in stage design, lighting and the use of music and songs than in English dramatists. Moreover, this impact has been broad, conspicuous, and, at the same time, superficial rather than deep. (Ibid:, 68). It has been scarce compared to that exerted on directors and productions of the classics, especially of restoration plays (Tynan, 1961: 283). Notwithstanding all this, many British dramatists in the mid-fifties and sixties came to be influenced by Brecht, in one way or another. Traces of Brechtian epic drama paid technical devices (Esslin, 1966: 63; and Hall, 110-15). It can, for example, be detected in John Osborne's two chronicle plays: Luther and A Patriot for Me, and in his satirical musical The World of Paul Slickey.

The truest follower who shows deep affinities with Brecht's concepts on epic theatre was, undoubtedly, John Arden. His epic dramas Live Like Pigs, Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance, Happy Heaven, The Workhouse Donkey and Arm Strong’s Last Goodnight show an essential attitude shared by both writers. This impact can also be observed in Robert Bolt's chronicle. A Man for All Seasons, Christopher Logue's satirical Trials by Logue and The Lilywhite Boys, Arnold Wesker's Chips with Everything and Their Very Own and Golden City, John Whiting's The Devils and Peter Shaffers The Royal Hunt of the Sun. Brecht's method has been initiated by Joan Littlewood in such plays as The Hostage, Fings and A Taste of Honey.

On the whole, what British dramatists were able to do after the visit of the Berliner Ensemble to London was, as Hall asserts, either a kind of pastiche of Brecht as in Brendam

8 Beban's Hostage or the invention of a British sort of naturalism which is manifest in “the interest to renovate working-class life, (Hall; qtd. in Alvarez,1959: 609) the preoccupation with humanist values and an interest in the attack upon Establishment values through social criticism.” (Evans, 1968: 171).

Indeed, modern English drama began on May 8, 1956 with the first performance of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court in London. This date is considered by all critics and historians of modern English drama as a turning point in the English theatre of the late fifties. English drama remained derivative from European drama until the year 1956 and the advent of new wave drama which began with this play. In that year, England became the centre of world drama (Granger, 1975: 37).

The play caused a complete outbreak in the conception of English drama in modern times, especially that of the fifties and sixties. It was, according to an early reviewer (Taylor, 1975: 37), a play of extraordinary importance "which has given the English Stage Company its "first...excited sense occasion" and was expected to exert an influence on modern English drama far more than that of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. J. R. Taylor (1974: 7) observes that Look Back in Anger caused a dramatic revolution and a surge of journalistic excitement in which the term 'the New Drama’ took, its place in our everyday vocabulary (Ibid:, 8).

“One of the play's prime achievements was the establishment of the Royal Court theatre as the home of forward-looking and committed British drama.” (Tynan, 1961: 196; Taylor, 1971: 6). Moreover, the play made a change in the whole picture of writing in England. Writers now adopted the drama instead of the novel their chosen form of writing They also found companies ready to produce their plays, and new audience to appreciate them (Taylor, 1967: 162).

Osborne’s breakthrough with Look Back in Anger was not only a breakthrough of the younger generation it also signalled a point of departure from the conventions of the well-made play which characterized the drama of the immediate post-war years. Critics and public now described the drawing-room comedies of the Georgian and Edwardian eras as

9 “moribund and English drama in the late fifties-and sixties began to be uniformly considered as rich, strange [and] infinitely various.” (Ibid:, 1967: 162).

One may conclude that this play; was favourably received by the majority of theatrical critics and was conceived of as the one play required to justify the existence and the survival of the artistic ideals of the Stage Company and the Royal Court. It, too, foresaw the emergence on the English stage of some talented young dramatists in, England'. This was the common view to the play even before, the then dramatic critic of the Kenneth Tynan, reviewed it enthusiastically (Tynan, 1961: 131-2).

Although the post-war generation of writers in England shows indebtedness by drawing largely on the theme and dramatic forms which were previously exploited by the Edwardian and Georgian dramatists of the period 1900-1930, (Brown & Harris, (eds.) 1968:77-95). They have nevertheless contributed many elements to the modern drama. The most significant contribution is the diffusion of dramatic philosophies, such as realism, naturalism, epic, alienation, etc. “The young dramatists of the late fifties and sixties are characterized by their tremendous variety and unwillingness to follow one particular dramatist (whether native or foreign) or school of drama. Despite the "realistic mound" of Look Back in Anger, it did not establish and "school of social - protest drama” (Taylor, 1971: 8). Or drama of social realism, John Fern, Harold Pinter, Ann Jellicoe, N.F. Simpsons, and Arnold Wesker are Osborne's contemporaries, but they can hardly be fitted into one school of drama. They cannot, for example, all be considered as writers of the drama of social realism, or of the ' kitchen sink drama, or of drama of the absurd of epic theatre (Taylor, 1971: 8).

Nevertheless, one of the outstanding features of English drama from 1956 onwards is the evolution of social theatre. This is due to three reasons (Barker, 1966: 369). First is the rising number of writers who come from a working-class background. Second is the increasing interest in Brecht's social realism as a result of the visit of the Berliner Ensemble in 1956. The third factor, however, is the appearance of Commercial television which attracts a working- class audience as advertisers.

10 The social theatre which has greatly developed in the post - 1956 years in England is concerned with left Wing politics and social protest and the “portrayal of the insecure and defeated elements in society.” (Evans, 1968: 207). Those years witnessed a rapid move towards realism. This was manifest in the adoption of the subjects, and speech of the working - class which brought drama closer to life. As Laurence Kitchin (1966) expressed it, “the elements which combined to produce realism in post - war English drama very popular speech, a concern for the underprivileged and the dispossessed, a new freedom of political debate” (Kitchin, 1966: 101).

It is to be noted here that English realism which developed through the nineteen - fifties shows indebtedness to that displayed by Gorki-end Synge. “Prom Synge came its defiance of authority and respect for local dialect from. Gorki its cult of social outcasts in a grim sailing” (Ibid:, 100).

The post-1956 English dramatists started to look at the world without instead of either their own world or an escapist dream world of their own creation. In the social theatre past 1956, the validity of the relationships between characters, actors and audience depended on social contents and not emotional ones as was the case with drawing room comedy prior to 1956 where class relationships were treated unrealistically or else regarded as unimportant (Kitchin, 1966: 100). The new social drama is the antitheses of the well- constructed post-Ibsen drama which is usually sailed the well-made play.

Among the most prominent figures who have introduced social realism into British drama of the late fifties are : “Osborne, Arden, Weaker, Delaney and Behan, Their plays are true reply. Actions of the facts and rhythms of modern life.” (Alvarez, 1959: 610). Utter commitment to social facts is abundantly found in their work,

toast is burned, clothes are ironed, bobs have to be found for, the gas-meter, the empties have to be returned to the pub. The heroes lose their jobs rather than their fortunes, their wives more often than their mistresses. (Alvarez, 1959: 610).

This does not exist in the old drawing - room play where “everything is formalized and widely conventionalized” (Hunt, 1962: 52-5).

11 Moreover, “the strength of the dramatists of social realism lies in their ability to “create a truth of talk by manipulating the speech rhythms and dialects of London or provincial working - classes in their plays.” (Alvarez, 1959: 610). Dialogue is selected with such artifice that it becomes a major dramatic element, whereas before 1956 working, class and regional dialects were confined to urban theatre and “grotesque servants in West End plays as in the use of the Norfolk dialectal in Weaker Roots, the regional dialect of Staffordshire and of the Lancashire dialect in Delaney's play A Taste of Honey; Such use is a very crucial element to the dramatic effect created by both dramatists. They have an “ear for speech” (Ibid:, 610), which can be regarded a mark of superiority to their Georgian and Edwardian predecessors. “Their language is slangy, gay, messy , irreverent ; it is, in short, the real thing, just as their feelings come from a shared experience rather than from some trumped-up device (Ibid:, 610).

Despite their belonging to various dramatic traditions, two features remain certain. “These qualities characterize the British dramatists of the post-war period. The first is that the majority of Osborne's generation of writers comes from working-class origins.” (Evans, 1968: 199). With the exception of Arden and John Mortimer, very few of the new dramatists have university education, before 1956, the theatre was a middle-class preserve, but after this date it became the domain of working class talents. The second element in common is the fact that they have a background of Left - Wing positions, and. display social protest in their writings. They are "anti-Establishment" (Alvarez, 1959: 609), and they conceive of drama as a means of social and political reform (Trussler,1969:8), in order to produce a new classless ideal society, Their political philosophy is Socialism (Marowitz, Milne & Hale, 1970: 7ff).

Although the post-war writers of social realism in England are mainly concerned with showing the squalor the violence and the boredom in this world, they have hopes and aspirations of some kind. Accordingly, “The main setting is one of sordidness and despair, but this is not accompanied by a nihilistic attitude.” (Marowitz (ed.), 1970: 98). On the contrary “the art we must produce is one that ... struggles to arouse interest in the world and

12 persuades one to have faith in life. An art, in fact, that establishes” (Wesker; qtd. in Marowitz; 1970: 98).

“In any movement timing is essential, and Look Back in Anger arrived at the right moment.” (Osborne, 1957: 9-10). In fact, the whole atmosphere of the fifties in England was that of protest and anger. Disillusion and rebellion on the part of the younger post - war generation of writers were part of the intellectual climate of the fifties. Osborne's play gave rise to what is called by many the “Angry Young Men Movement” (Ginsberg, 1956: 11).

This term was much in vague to the degree that, accordingly, every new writer of those years was indiscriminately considered an angry young man writers as dissimilar as Arden, Jellicoe and Mortimer were all thought to be representative of this movement. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth (Ibid:, 12).

The very phrase ‘angry young man’ takes its origin from the title of an essentially political work, Angry Young Man (1951), by an English social philosopher named Leslie Alien Paul (Holloway, 1957: 424). The book is an autobiography which describes the writer’s own conversion into Christian humanism.

There are different theories as regards the writer who; first started the movement of the angry young man in Britain. One theory is that Colin Wilson is the first angry young man who created the outsider figure in his novel The Outsider (1956) and made him a picture of himself and a symbol of all angry young men. Another theory claims that the movement started with John Wain's novel Hurry on Down (1953) (Holloway, 1957: 424-9).

Nevertheless, there is a stronger evidence which supports the view that the English dramatist John Osborne was the first angry young man and that the term was first attached to him and used to describe Jimmy Porter - the hero of his first (Osborne, 1973) play Look Back in Anger. At the premiere of the play, the press-agent of the Royal Court Theatre asked for a description of the iconoclastic young gate crasher, said he was first and foremost an angry young man. Shortly afterwards, the term grew into a cult and caught on in the mass-circulation news-papers very rapidly. With Look Back in Anger, Osborne

13 became Britain's leading playwright and the undisputed leader of the angry young men. (Tynan, 1961: 191).

However, the title was refuted by some critics who though it inappropriate and lacking in exactness. Baiwir, for example, is a critic who maintains that the term must be replaced by Bewildered Young Men, which he believes is closer to the reality about these young men who display confusion and inability to change things (Baiwir; qtd. in Carter, 1974: 11). In fact, Osborne himself objects to be labelled an angry young many and comments: "It was rather some, like being called the Ice - Cream Man”. (Osborne; qtd in Metwally, 1971: 74). Others denounced the title and found it misleading on the basis that when applied to the leader of the movement John Osborne, the label will prove limiting since Osborne has tried a variety of subjects (Banham, 1969: 2). Furthermore, the argument goes on, such a title also implies a propagation of a certain cause or message (whether political, social or personal) which does not exist in the playwright's work for the very reason that Osborne’s art is didactic. The fact that the angry young roan show some dis- crepancies in age, education and literary genre provide reasons for some critics (Carter & Metwally, 1971: 28-73) to suppose the non-existence of the movement.

It is noticeable here that not only critics but also some writers of the movement refused to be labelled ‘angry young men’ and strongly resisted being identified with each other. In addition to Osborne, John Wain and Kingsley Amis are such examples (Bode, 1959: 337). Wain even went too far by denying the existence of the movement, and the latter objected to being considered an angry young man, in spite of the fact that Osborne (Ibid:, 337) refers to both writers and himself as the principal members of it. This is due to two reasons. “The first is that these writers display distaste for the movements of all sorts, owing to their being English, The second reason is their feeling that to call them angry would be too limiting for their aims.” (Balakian, 1959: 261). To them, the term even distorts their aspirations by suggesting the aggressiveness of their protest.

Differences emerge among critics as far as the identification of the members of the angry young men movement is concerned. John Holloway attaches the name to Kingsley Amis in Lucky Jim, John Osborne in Look Back in Anger, John Wain in Hurry on down

14 and George Scott Time and Place. (1957: 424). To Carl Bode, “the major figures of the movement are four, but instead of Scott he considers Richard Hogarth in The Uses of Literacy as the fourth member of the group.” (1959:332). Nona Balakian (1959:261) adds a few more names to the list : Colin Wilson in The ; Outsider (1956), Stuart Ilolroyd in Entertainer from Ghaog (1957) as well as John Braine in Room at the Top (1957) Under The Net (1954 )and J.P. Donleavy in the Anger Man (1957) . On the whole, it can be pointed out with assertion that the most members of the so-called movement are Osborne, Amis Wain and Wilson.

The Movement issued a book entitled declaration, (Bode, 1959: 332), “which may be held as its manifesto.” It comprises of essays written by eight angry young men, each contributing one in which the writer gives his personal views about the movement and himself.

It is significant to note that in addition to writers (playwrights and novelists), the movement included philosophers (Wilson and Holroyd), art and literary critics (John Berger and Wain, respectively), poets (Christopher Logue), film directors (Lindsay Anderson) and painters as well (Tynan,1961: 190). In spite of apparent divergences in literary content, these young intellectuals have certain characteristics in common, they are a group of intellectual rebels of Left Wing tendencies either Leftist Liberals or outright Socialists. Nearly all of them agreed on one point namely their protest against the ‘Estab- lishment’ by which they mean:

“Top people-professional monarchists, archbishops, press barons, Etonian Tories. And Times leader writers - who still seemed ... to be exerting a disproportionate influence on the country's affairs.” (Ibid:, 191).

Furthermore, one of their outstanding achievements is bringing to the fore the idea of commitment in art. This means a commitment to social truth and reality:

15 “What was of vital importance in the fifties was that literature and art began to concern all of us again.... We should rather have encouraged and applauded [the angry young men’s] attempt to portray life as they felt it existed and as they had experienced it.” (Carter, 1974: 29).

In fact, their anger stems from their idea that art is not an escape from life but an influence on it. It is anger which is principally directed against a world devoid of this kind or art.

In addition to their strong adherence to display social commitment, these artists and writers manifest the political commitment in their writings. Holloway puts it as:

“It is a nominal risk to say that these writers take less of a political stand than a stand against having any political stand,” (Holloway, 1957: 424).

Another aspect of these young writers’ commitment, politically as well as socially, can be detected in their deep patriotism to their native country - England, In spite of their utter dissatisfaction with, and consistent attacks against, almost every aspect of social and political life: contemporary England, they never attempted to forsake their native place to the point that, as Stephen Spender (1958: 114) assumed they seem scarcely conscious of a world outside England.

Moreover, these angry young men were generally speaking, State-educated descending from working-class origins. Through government scholar ships, they have lifted themselves above their original social class, but living in a society dominated by class structure.

They were barred, to a certain extent, from making their position among the privileged upper-class and having opportunity for the achievement, hence, the source of their dilemma, being identified with neither class, they are accordingly left with valueless standards, this is in fact, the essence of their rebellion. “They are highly critical individuals whose chief targets are the very subjects which the upper - classes and the Establishment ' looked upon' as sacred royalty, politics, religion class and marriage,” (Carter, 1974: 29).

16 Although these writers, by dint of their rebellion, against the traditional social, political and religious institutions “called for change and reform, they presented no definite and clearly defined program of social reform they expressed a desperate need for some change by criticizing the injustice which they had detected in post-war Britain under the Welfare State.” (Spender, 1958: 110). But we could say that they share a common belief in man's ability to change and, consequently, insist on the writer's involvement in the 'contemporary scene.

As mentioned by Michael, there is a hopeful and positive movement, for it is “a movement toward honesty and away from hypocrisy reaction against political lies and social sham, a rejection of all cults of the gentleman.” (qtd. in Millgate, 1957: 431).

The most important contribution of the angry young writers, however, is their creation of a new type of hero who is often portrayed as a lonely and frustrated figure of a working - class background and attacking the Establishment, State - educated intellectual “with a ribald sense of humour ... And an attitude of villainous irreverence towards the establishment order." (Tynan, 1961: 190-1). This new hero inevitably turns into an alien in his own community, owing to the discrepancy between his original class and the class to which his intelligence and high education entitle- him to belong. For this reason, he is often termed an ‘outsider’. The name is apparently derived from the title of Colin Wilson’s book The Outsider which appeared only three weeks before Osborne’s Look Back in Anger. (Osborne, 1973).

G. Wilson Knight (1963: 49f) defines the term outsider as “referring to one who is ' outside ' the conventional, English middle - class valuations.” He is not, Knight goes on, necessarily outside life itself, one the contrary, and he is usually nearer to it than the others. In this respect, he resembles the angry young man himself by manifesting his social responsibility and commitment as on individual. On the other hand, John Holloway describes the new hero as “tough, rude, clumsy, ill-dressed, ill-washed, an enemy of phony culture and phony everything” (1957: 424).

It is sometimes claimed that there is no one type of the new hero in the literary writings of the angry young men (Ibid:, 424). This is true to a certain extent, for Amiss Jim

17 Dixon in Lucky Jim differs in many respects from Osborne’s Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger. These two heroes show certain numerous divergences from Joe Lambton (the hero of John Braine's novel Room at the TOP, and Lewis, the hero of Kingsley’s second novel The Uncertain Feeling. (Ibid:, 424). What is of concern to us here, however, is that these books portray some elements in common, namely the reflection of the social difficulties which confront the outsiders or those who climb the social ladder through high education. They are rebels in the sense of defying the accepted norm. “These young rebels or outsiders, like their creators, are constantly obsessed by the class distinctions in Britain. They protest against the fact that one of the most intelligent sections of society is excluded from the birth right to which it thinks its intelligence entitles it.” (Watt (eds.). 1970: 59).

One of the most traditional targets for the new rebels - besides the class conflict - is the elder generation. The rebel against their elders end blame them chiefly for “the naitveté of their anti-fascism.” (Spender, 1958: 111). This, however, is true of the young generation in England throughout the twentieth - century. 'The young English of the First World War', for example, blamed the elder generation for sending them to the trenches to be killed] the young of the nineteen - thirties also blamed the old for their passivity and for not fighting fascism (Ibid:, 112).

On the whole, one may conclude that the new rebel's revolt is directed against certain aspects of conservatism in society. In this respect even the Left and the Labour Party are not excluded from the range of his sea tiling criticism. In fact, we may assume that the main stream of his rebellion stream from his disillusionment with the conservative and backward policy of Left in Britain, for "The Conservatism of the Left… is merely one aspect of the conservatism of Britain as a whole.” (Magee, 1962: 179).

18 CHAPTER II

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SATIRE

2.1. Introduction to Social and Political Satire in John Osborne’s Selected Works

Many literary works in the history of nations are held as lessons in social life or criticism of social failure as well as the many other themes of literature. Nevertheless, any literary work cannot but have apparent or hidden links to the society from which it is inspired and to which it is dedicated. Still, some writers just express what they think and feel but the same fact remains as what they think and feel is generated by the society they belong to. So, a writer whose writings are social criticism needs not be a social reformer as is the case with John Osborne.

Despite the fact that the main body of the present study is devoted to social and political study, the whole study is, in fact, a socio-political one. And, as Osborne is held as the leader of the movement of the "Angry Young Men" and his Look Back in Anger is considered the beginning of the "new drama," Osborne's plays must have some real social impulse. He insists, in general, on the theme of isolation as he shows isolated heroes (or anti-heroes) who cannot belong to a society that seems chaotic to them and which leaves them live in estrangement and alienation.

The ideological and political clashes in the modem age left man 'bewildered whether he, really, has a hand in the happenings of his life, let alone the happenings in the general social life. This kind of instability in the modern age was reflected in the literary works of the writers of the age in the different literary genres. In this respect, it is maintained that social reformers or not, the modern writers could not avoid being involved in the general process of society as it is the fact with the writers of other ages. Thus, it could be true that “Osborne is not a social reformer” (Weiand, 1979: 93). Weiand notes, but this does not deny the truth that Osborne is “an emotional socialist who has never quite

19 bothered to define his ideas of socialism very clearly,” (Wager, 1969: 71). So, we find Osborne expressing the spirit of the age in his plays to show how social evils created failure equally on both personal and social levels. His plays echoed far in the English society and further in the European society because they are genuine, revealing and coming from the core of the modern situation. Thus, Osborne speaks about himself and the playwrights in line with his method as being different from the ordinary playwrights of the age and he says that “what people found strange about us was a feeling of dissent and non-acceptance of established institutions and values,” (Osborne, qtd in Wager, 1969: 74).

It is clear that Osborne did not hesitate to declare his dissatisfaction with the kind of false values still clinched to by the middle-class and he set himself to portray the evils of social life in the modern age with a nostalgia to remote past.(Ibid:,74). Thus, it was naturally created that kind of alienated protagonists in his plays like Jimmy Porter, Archie Rice and Wyatt Gillman.

Yet what we are about in this chapter is to deal with the realistic treatment Osborne made of the man of his age influenced by Ibsen and guided by Freud's analysis. For, to some extent, Osborne's characters were made by the new realism so they were demonstrating the eccentric cases of psyche dominating his age. Osborne did his best and made his success at giving those characters and the kind of human psyche they represent their right range of social influence till it became rather difficult for the researcher to take in separate analysis the social and the psychological failures which were treated by this playwright who has an excellent view on them with regard to diagnose and defend them.

The modern man is exposed to many kinds of pressures, physical and psychological, materialistic and spiritual. Such outer and inner pressures and forces dominated man's present life and his future as well and they foreshadow a gloomy sense around him. Yet, such forces make him aware of his dilemma, and the place where it springs from. Nevertheless, he is incapable of taking any positive step towards his own salvation, as he retreats and runs away, from his own environment and his own self. So, the modern man becomes able in seeing how far he is deprived of humanity to become merely like a machine, weak and cripple at facing or changing the reality of his life (Ibid:, 74).

20 Man is getting closer and closer from knowing who he is, but scared of this discovery from which he tries to escape helplessly just to fall in different kind particular the psychological failure. It is not, really, a difficult task to find out how clearly Osborne offers his audience a set of protagonists who are best showing the symptoms of psychological failure that crept fast among his generation; especially among the young. Osborne presented anti-heroes rather than heroes for the leading characters of his plays since he believed that it was high time to talk about heroes.

John Osborne, as earlier mentioned, was an actor before becoming a playwright. Combining the two characters in one gave him the chance to be capable of expressing the inner side of the characters he presented as well as being able to know what the audience need and how to meet their demands. It is true that he, sometimes, expressed his belief that dramatists should have “a complete artistic freedom, so that sometimes they do not have to please audience or please critics or please anybody.” (Nicoll, 1962: 39). This seems to be so because he read well the spirit of his age and wanted to make it clear to his fellow citizens. Thus, he brought a new life to the British drama in particular and to the European drama in general. His plays, since Look Back in Anger made him a pioneer though not all of them, not even those of the furthest echo in the horizon of Modern drama have pleased the audience of critics or anybody else.

Osborne had enough self-confidence to come with something new. Though, to some extent, he is a graduate of the Brechtian school that brought changes to drama, he always reminded the audience that the characters on stage are demonstrating their reality but they are not a representative copy of the onlookers (Ibid:, 39). Thus, they should not identify themselves with the characters on stage.

It is worth mentioning that psychology, since the beginning of the twentieth century, became very inter-related with literature. William B. Arndt, a professor of psychology has once noted:

21 Interest, study and writing in the area of personality certainly began long before any of our theories were even born. Philosophers before Aristotle were discussing issues still dealt with in contemporary personality theory. Novelists, historians, playwrights and poets have left ample evidence of their keen interest in and awareness of the problems of personality. (Arndt, 1974: 67).

This, undoubtedly, shows that literature was the first to take the task of analysing the human psyche before any branch of psychology. Thus, we should put it in mind that if psychology has developed enough to create a study of personality and psychoanalysis, it is necessarily, then, that literature with the growing complexity of modern man's environment must have created new ways to deal with characters that best suit the spirit of the modem complex life (Ibid:, 67). This idea is emphasized by Allport who “believed that psychology and literature are the two disciplines that have been most concerned and productive in the study of personality.” (Allport; qtd. in Arndt, 1974: 67).

This leads to the assumption that the same way the psychoanalysts deal clinically with human psyche through the branch of the psychology of personality, the writers deal with their characters in a way that shows, so well, the neurotic, pathetic or healthy characters in their literary works.

Some critics who searched in the field of the relationship between psychology and literature came to the conclusion that “it should be clear that criticism is not a branch of psychoanalysis any more than psychoanalysis is a branch of criticism.” (Kurzweil & Phillips, 1983: 13). So, consciously or not, writers usually give their audience characters who are well composed, studied and analysed whether neurotic, eccentric, pathetic or healthy.

It is obvious, by now, that psychology and literature are dependent as Allport maintained that “literature has something to teach to those interested in personality.” (Allport; qtd. in Arndt. 1974: 67). This is, maybe, because writers are the best students of their age and their contemporary society, which make them realize the mental and emotional component and tendencies of their audience. As literary criticism is dependent on psychology, it could be seen as a kind of criticism of literary works and figures offered

22 by Freud's theories which maintain that a creative faculty draws on drives and fantasies buried in the unconscious and they pave the way to understand the imaginative mind as well as the individual works.(Ibid:,68) Freud has revealed some of the fundamental mechanisms by which artistic and poetic creativity operate. In fact, he has shown:

The main characteristics of these mechanisms have much in common with those underlying many apparently dissimilar mental processes such as dreams, wit, and psycho-neurotic symptoms, further that these processes bear an intimate relation to fantasy, to the realization of the non-conscious wishes, to psychological "repression, to the revival of childhood memories, and to the psycho-sexual life of the individual. (Jones, 1949: 16).

This kind of hypothesized connection, by Freud, between the literary figure's psyche and his literary work, between the making of the writer and the making of his writings, between the environment stamped on the characters he creates the reflections of those characters on their environment- all led critics to pay more and more attention to the psychological theories and psychoanalysis when handling literary works (Ibid:, 6).

Critics found interest in Freud's theories because he was one of the first to clarify such a relationship between the writer and his literary outcome. He “believed that the unconscious of the writer was connected to that of the reader by the neuroses they shared.” (Freud; qtd. in Kurzweil & Phillips, 1983: 1). The thing which draws attention to and puts emphasis on the personal life and history of the writer and which also emphasizes what we mentioned above about the writer being a student of the spirit of his age just because he lives in and analyses it simultaneously (Ibid:, 2).

Freud, also, put in his psychological studies an emphasis on literary talent and skill and noted “the parallels between literary composition and such common activities as children's play and day dreaming, and literature and myths, which reveal the fantasies of entire communities and nations and even the whole of early humanity” (Ibid:, 2). This also enhances the above idea about the inseparable relationship between the writer's psyche and the human psyche he illustrates through his characters whether he means to do it or not.

23 The seeds of psychology and psychoanalysis prepared by Freud, soon found their plant in the soil of modern literary criticism and gave their fruit though some of which were like that of Benedict Nightingale in his attack, or rather offence against Osborne (Ibid:, 1).

Nightingale is so much stressing on Osborne's personal life when criticizing his plays and coming out with a hard attack on him when expressing his belief that it was better for Osborne to stop writing drama because all that he wrote, in Nightingale's opinion, was an attempt to make Osborne's vague emotions triumph over the defined thought that is supposed to be expressed in the play yet it does not have any existence. He tried his best in reading Osborne's auto-biography to show that every indication of hatred, abnormality, or any pathetic behaviour in Osborne's plays is an illustration or reflection of Osborne's own life. Also, he tried to say that Osborne was not a creative intellectual and talented person as much as he is a tortured soul found in writing drama an outlet to reveal to the world the great hatred (Ibid:, 2).

Apart from Nightingale's opinion, Osborne is worth praising rather than being attacked for the kind of plays he wrote. Osborne lived the miseries of his age and could skillfully demonstrate them in his plays. And if his plays reflect any aspect of his life, they will be reflecting an aspect in the lives of the young generation he belongs to. It is when he found something wrong with humanity he realized that it was not in his hand to correct what is wrong but he knew that he had the means to say that it is wrong. His means was rather harsh but it was somewhat active. He chose to shock humanity by revealing the ugliness of modern life and the ugliness of modern man when he gave up belonging to genuine humanity.

It was not only Osborne's writings that proved his dissatisfaction with the status of man in modern life, but it was his deeds too. John Arden says “Osborne (like many of us) felt intuitively that the political and cultural establishment was corrupt self-seeking, and not of much use to the ordinary citizen, ever!” (Arden and Galway, 1999: 90). Also, tells about an event in 1961 that brought him together with Osborne in one cell for a night, saying: “We were both arrested for being- part of a mass-demonstration against nuclear weapons.” (Ibid:, 91). This admission by a contemporary playwright proves that Osborne

24 was not just reflecting upon some pathetic aspects in his psyche as much as being a rebel against the evils of his age in both his writings and deeds.

It is not a matter of attacking or defending Osborne, nor a matter of showing his failure or success as a dramatist. It is rather a matter of tracing the means by which Osborne exposes and demonstrates the failure or sense of failure from which the modern man suffered (Ibid:, 91). It is also an attempt to show how realistic are the futile characters Osborne created.

There are, indeed, many neuroses and pathetic aspects that could be traced in Osborn's plays. The present study will be confined to the main aspects and the main characters that constitute the infrastructure of the plays, and were of the major influence on the current of events in the plays and on the audience, as well.

It is quite true that literature provides psychology with case studies like how, for example, psychoanalysis drove the Oedipus complex from Oedipus Rex. Freud and his followers assumed that “the discoveries of psychoanalysis about human drives and motives throw some light on the lives of writers and the psychic mechanisms of their characters.” (Freud; qtd. in Kurzweil & Phillips 1983: 12). This might mean that through the application of psychoanalysis to a certain literary work, we can learn about the writer's background, as it is already hinted by Nightingale when he made a connection between Osborne's personal life and the plays he wrote. Also we can understand, through the application of psychoanalysis to the literary criticism, the bases upon which the writer builds his characters, and thus we may predict the kind of themes that mostly draw the interest of a particular writer (Ibid:, 12). Moreover, this kind of criticism can help to expose the kind of characters which a particular writer is to present in his works and the type of human psyche they are to represent and stand for. It also helps to realize the how and why the characters are structured as well as the range of each character.

This does not mean that all literary works can convey the personal life of their creatures. That is because the personal stamps that appear on a particular literary work come mostly from the experiences buried in the writer's unconscious as “it is generally agreed that individuals are unaware of many of the inner and outer events that influence

25 their behavior.” (Kurzweil & Phillips, 1983: 321). Henceforth, it is recognizable that the writers are sometimes conscious to orientate their works with the direction that best serves their intentions with the least reference to their personal life.

Nevertheless, there is the kind of psychoanalysis that is applied to literary texts while it is interested mainly in the characters and events whether it refers or not to the writer, for “psychoanalysis, like a literary text, is now seen by the French and their American disciples as so much grist for the analysts' and the critics' creative mill.” (Ibid:, 12). Yet an exclusive psychoanalytic criticism of a literary work could be as misleading and destructive the same way a social or historical or Marxist review of literature could be of reductive and distorting effects. (Ibid:, 321).

There are many psychological symptoms shown by the characters whose features are drawn by John Osborne. These symptoms prove to the criticism with psychoanalysis approach that there is some psychological defects in those characters. For instance, Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger could be seen as affected by paranoia which is defined as “a mental illness in which a person is observed by mistaken beliefs, especially that he is being badly treated by others or that he is somebody important,” (Hornby, 1989: 896). That it is an “abnormal tendency to suspect and mistrust other people” (Ibid:, 896).

This may lead a literary critic with a humble knowledge in psychoanalysis to believe that Jimmy Porter is affected by paranoia as he shows through the long monologues he delivers, that life is unfair and that he is badly treated by others, whether those others are presented characters on or off stage. For example, his wife Alison does not care for what he suffers and she does not answer him when he talks about his miseries. She even refuses to go with him to pay the last look at a dying woman, Hugh's mother, whom Jimmy loves dearly. It is not easy to judge, from the literary point of view, whether or not this criticism is going the right way, because it is not easy for the least, to define the healthy mind so that we may be able to decide when there is a mental illness. Thus “there is no accepted definition of a healthy mind, at least no definition that is ideological rather than clinical.” (Kurzweil & Phillips, 1983: 9).

26 Here one may proceed to say that Jimmy Porter shows the attitude of the paranoiac personality which is “shown to consist in a profound feeling of dissatisfaction with life.” (Adler, 1955: 257). So, Jimmy goes on being angry with life and one can never decide what it is exactly that he is angry about. Jimmy, like most paranoiac people, tries to "conceal his lack of success both to himself and others in order not to mound his pride or self- consciousness." (Ibid:, 257). He blames Alison for being careless, accuses his friend, Cliff, of ignorance and ridicules Alison's brother, Niegil, as an empty man, while at the same time he admits that he is a failure for not keeping friends round him as a result of his bad behaviour.

The criticism, so far, has proven to be going on well considering that even Jimmy's hostility to his wife, Cliff, and others is explained under the same topic. It is “in the paranoiac's attitude we find reflected the hostile attitude towards his fellowmen.” (Ibid:, 257). Whether or not he finds logical reasons, Jimmy is so hostile almost to everyone just because of his paranoia and it flows with him, like other paranoiac people, “automatically from his active striving for universal superiority which finds expression in the form of the idea that he must be given consideration.” (Ibid:, 260). This is definitely what pushes Jimmy to say all those tirades to which others must listen and pay attention and must agree with. A paranoiac person like Jimmy Porter, as we are supposing here, in this sense can never be looked at as a dependable participant in the social life and he “enters into normal human relationship (love, friendship, occupation, society, etc.), with an incorrect attitude.” (Ibid:, 260).

Jimmy married Alison not for love but to avenge himself upon middle-class through her and through this marriage. In fact, Alison herself declares that Jimmy made her fall in love with him and he married her just to make her a means to avenge himself against the middle-class people.(Ibid:,259). So, as psychoanalysts sum up the paranoiac person as a person whose life is manifested by “love of domination, insufferability, lack of fellow feeling, absence of love relations or the selection of few docile persons” (Ibid:, 260). Thus, he is “recognizable by his querulous and unjustly critical nature.” (Ibid:, 260). All the above mentioned characteristics of paranoiac persons can be traced in Jimmy's character,

27 and at the lowest measure whenever he is made to speak, one can find him criticizing and attacking people for everything he knows.

Literary criticism, so far, gives details only of the plot and if it is to be applied with quotations said by the characters in Look Back in Anger, it may prove to be more valid. But John Osborne did not set himself to show the audience the mental illness of some characters as much as to show the social evils that complicated man's life in the twentieth century. This criticism could in this way offer a case study to psychoanalysts but it certainly goes beyond Osborne's intention of the play. Osborne could be proved to have intended to tell, through Look Back in Anger, how modern man became an embodiment of failure which sometimes has a psychological phase.

Thus, the study of psychological failure in this respect must be within limits so as to serve telling about the eccentric aspects that the writer exposed most successfully in his plays to prove his claim of the negative affect of the difficult circumstances of life on modern man's character and life. And, it should not shock the audience who find much of themselves in such plays, as Look Back in Anger, and in such a character as Jimmy Porter in particular.

Look Back in Anger was not to find all the success it has found if it was merely talking about mentally-sick people, nor would it have, by any chance, become the start shot for a movement in English drama life the "Angry Young Men" were only some psychopathic representatives, then, they would not have got all that interest they have gained. The point reached here is that the socio-psychological critical study of Osborne's plays is, to some extent, the best approach to understand Osborne's plays for he is, like any other dramatists, made by his age. The political, military, cultural, religious, and other factors are all made by and in a society.

Each society consists of individuals who make the changes in it and in the lives of the other individuals as well. This leads to the consideration that when a writer handles a certain character in his literary work, it means that he is handling samples of his society no matter whether they are shown to be historical or imaginary characters for as long as he is

28 writing for his society, he must be writing about them. Consciously or not a writer can never be isolated from his society or the spirit of the age he is living in.

2.2. Look Back in Anger

It could be summarized as a play that merely “presented such a gloomy picture of a dispossessed ex-graduate,” (Elson 1958: 76). But, how come that an ex-graduate became dispossessed and why? Why could he not be presented in a better picture than that gloomy one in Look Back in Anger? The answer is that Jimmy Porter is the truthful representative of modern young men in an age of discontent, puzzlement and instability. Look Back in Anger is an account of the truth of an age of dilemmas for the English society in particular where the Labour Party lost and whose loss was accompanied by the Hungarian issue and the Suez fiasco. (Ibid;, 76), so whether in look Back in Anger or in his other plays Osborne just did what he thought he had to do, just like what he says here: “I've always tried to present the truth as I've seen it,” (Osborne: qtd. in Wager, 1969: 83). Yet, he denies the claim that he devoted his art for social criticism as he says: “I don't consider myself to be a social critic, which I'm not” (ibid:, 84) . But Look Back in Anger still has strong social undertones. Trussler (1969) maintains that “whether Osborne's art is devoted for social criticism or not and whether Osborne was a social critic or not, Osborne's plays are distinguished studies of modern man and society and they honestly reveal the truthful spirit of the age.” (10).

From the early beginning of the play one gets the feeling that there are things wrong about which Jimmy Porter is not at ease, Though his anger and dissatisfaction sometimes seem to be unjustified, there are some genuine issues which could be considered as the motive of his rage and intolerance such as social and political corruption and religious hypocrisy (Ibid:, 10).

Jimmy Porter finds himself living in a society which is driven further and further from idealism. It is usually in times of distrust in politics and at the times of social dismay, people may seek refuge in religion. But when the religious institutes deny people the chance of trust, there will be a disastrous situation. (Ibid:, 9). Jimmy could not find a

29 proper chance to live equal to others in a fair society. His feeling of loss and failure is fostered by the loss of faith in the role of the religious institute and the loss of trust in people responsible for it.

The post-war English society to which Jimmy belongs was tired of war and loss, so it was in need of peace. But when the Bishop of Bromley makes a strong appeal to all Christians to do their best to assist in the manufacture of the H. Bomb, it denies those people the sense of peace and emphasizes a state of a social failure. In addition to that strange appeal, the Bishop of Bromley expresses his dissatisfaction with and denial of the claim that he supports the rich against the poor while the Bishop himself says that “this idea has been persistently and wickedly fostered by-the working classes!”(This means that he is, in a way, against the working classes who represent the poor sectors in the English society. The best young play of arts decade,” (Tynan, 1988: 13).

The play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London where it ran for 151 performances. Then, it was transferred on 5 November 1956 to the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and London. Then, on 1 October 1957, it was transferred to the Lyceum Theatre, New (Ibid:, 13). The initial success of Look Back in Anger “was founded on the fact that it seemed to articulate the buried responses of its own day, [and] its continuing success will depend on how far we judge its perception of those responses to have incorporated more than just a limited historical view of the human conditions.” (Griffiths, 1981: 14). Thus, Look Back in Anger echoed deep in the hearts and minds of individuals. In Osborne's own words: “People recognized it as something real, something that was happening to them.” (Osborne; qtd. in Taylor, 1968: 55).

It was for the first time on the English stage in which a play, thought restricted to the traditional structure, such as the three acts, was against the restricting traditions. It was not a political propaganda but it criticized the political defects. It was not against religion or an exposition of certain religious beliefs though it criticized the negative aspects of the church and the religious institutes (Ibid:, 55). It was, in a way or another, a social criticism in the form of a socialist realism play heartedly dedicated to the society to which Osborne belonged.

30 2.3. The Entertainer

“Don't clap too hard, we're all in a very old building,” (Osborne, 1957: 86) says Archie Rice in The Entertainer. It was not only the building of the theatre Archie was supposed to be acting. It was part of England that was dying. It was that part connected to folk and tradition.

The Entertainer was first performed on 10 April 1957 at the Royal Court Theatre, London. Then, it was transferred on 10 September 1957 to Palace theatre, London, and then on 12 February 1958, it was transferred to the Royal Theatre, New York (Ibid:, 86).

The Entertainer was another address by Osborne to his fellowmen that echoed deep in their hearts and minds, Ronald Hayman says that when Osborne “says 'we' or 'people like you', the meaning is meant to spread like ripples from the Rice family to the audience and from the audience to the whole population of England.” (Hayman, 1976: 25). Through this play, and within naturalism sometimes and expressionism in others, Osborne tried to portray the English society to itself. Thus, the play could be seen as a portrait of the lost past, wasted present and unpromising future. While Look Back in Anger depicted a futile man of action against static events of an actionless life, The Entertainer depicted a fatigued middle aged man with a futile attempt to survive with a dying career (Ibid:, 25).

While escape from internal alienation is an idea in Look Back in Anger where it is replaced by external alienation, this escape is the solution that Osborne finds in The Entertainer. After their hard struggle to cope with the society they live in but cannot belong to, the characters of The Entertainer escape to Canada. When the old traditions died with the death of the music-hall, when connection was lost with the glorious past through the death of the old generation represented by Billy Rice, the middle and younger generation could not do anything but escape (Ibid:, 26). Osborne's second play, The Entertainer depicts both kinds of alienation; the revolutionary one presented by Jean Rice and the passive responsive one represented by Archie Rice.

In fact, the play criticizes the social failure of three generations. It is the failure of the old generation to keep the past living in the present. Billy represents a dying era of the

31 history of the English society that was shining and successful. Yet, it is dead. The fact that Osborne made Billy's death come before he is to stand up stage again is, as Simon (Trussler, 1969: 15) observes “symbolically appropriate, because it makes the point at which Archie's struggle to hold back the historical process is finally rendered futile.” Thus, it is obvious that it is not only Billy who wants back the prosperous past, it is, also, Archie who “alone is of a lost generation, caught at a turn of history's tide.” (Ibid:, 17).

The play catches a year of disturbance. It is in the aftermath of the Suez Canal crisis in the autumn of 1956 when England, with France and the Zionists, invaded Egypt but were finally forced to withdraw (Ibid:, 18). It is also the year of demonstrations in Trafalgar Square and trouble in Cyprus. It is the year of political unrest with the impending resignation of a Prime Minister and Hungarian revolution. (Ibid:, 17). It is the middle year of the decade which “hastened the death-rattle of the papery-tiger of British imperialism.” (Ibid:, 18). Thus, it is reasonable that The Entertainer speaks “about the barriers which separate generation from generation— and, in particular, about the estrangement of one whole generation at one moment in history.” (Trussler, 1969: 13).

2.4. Luther

It is better to start with what Simon Trussler says of Luther. “It is a play about physical and spiritual purgatory on earth. The evacuation of the bowels and the purification of church are thus conceived as parallel processes in the life of the eponymous hero” (Trussler, 1969: 15). Luther was first performed on 27 July 1961 at the Royal Court Theatre, London. Then it was transferred on 5 September 1961 to the Phoenix Theatre, London. On 25 September 1963 it was staged on St. James Theatre, New York (Ibid:, 15). A kind of search inside man's psyche but all that happened in it was again a rebellion without justification. The historical side of the play owes the least to the Brechtian epic theatre. (Ibid:, 16). The remoteness in time adds nothing to the facts more than a taste of history. Osborne in this play “tried to build up a portrait of the self-doubting anally obsessed Protestant leader: and in this sense he made a daring stylistic departure from the

32 single setting and closely knit time structures of his first. . . plays.” (Trussler, 1969: 17). That could be all that the shifting in scenes and remoteness in time has added to this modern historical play. It is previously discussed that Osborne's plays are full of social impulse though Osborne himself denies his being a social critic. That is because his plays do not only fall into the range of problem-plays of naturalism. Thus, even though Luther is based on a historical episode, it gave a modern analysis of a psycho neurotic character which could live at any age in history up to the present day. Yet, Luther is the least among Osborne's selected plays for this study that expresses social attitudes. Khelifa observes that “Osborne's Luther ... is an individual merely concerned with his own salvation” (1992: 98). The only social failure a critic may catch in Luther is shown through Luther's disowning of the peasant's revolt. Luther, in fact, became a reformer by accident. He never sought general social welfare more than he sought a salvation from his personal torment with its psychopathic impulses.

33 CHAPTER III

ANALYSIS OF JOHN OSBORNE’S PLAYS: LOOK BACK IN ANGER, THE ENTERTAINER, AND LUTHER

3.1. Look Back in Anger

The opening statement in the stage direction to Act I of the play Look Back in Anger reads “The Porter's one-room flat in a large Midland town. The scene is a fairly large attic room, at the top of large Victorian house.” (Osborne, 1973: 9) Here a picture is presented of the miserable, drab setting end the poor, working-class conditions of the Porter household. It is significant to point out at this stage that the action of the play takes place at the present time which, in the context of the play, means the year 1956. (Ibid:, 10) Therefore, the problem of living in a dingy one-room flat is, by implication, not confined to individuals as represented in this case by the rebel hero Jimmy Porter and his wife Allison. It rather extends its frame of reference to allude to a common situation faced by the majority of people in England in the years succeeding the Second World War in general, and 1956 in particular (Ibid:, 9).

The social satire is conveyed, in this connection, in the contrast between the one “attic room” and the “large Victorian house” which offers a drastic difference between the shabby present and the somewhat prosperous post of Victorian England (Ibid:, 9). Furthermore, the fact that this dire housing condition-underlies adverse social conditions and refers to a more general state is ascertained in Jimmy's words about the greedy, inconsiderate landlady Miss Drury who is described as “an old robber... (who) gets more than enough out of us for this place every week” (Ibid:, 25). This financial hardship provides one of the most significant causes for Jimmy's rebellion.

It is, moreover, symptomatic of the rebellious attitude of his generation of working- class background intellectuals towards the predominant economic disintegration, which may be considered one of the negative resultants of the Second World War, and which

34 finds its manifestation in two crises, namely the housing shortage and high rents English people were, in fact, greatly disappointed with the results of the war which, instead of bringing some relief on the economic and social-planes, merely intensified those problems already existing, such as sordid housing conditions and over-crowding (Evans, 1968: 195).

However, there are some critics and reviewers of Osborne who rightfully demand that the squalid setting of the Porters is a matter which should not be interpreted literally, that is, as reflecting a widespread social problem. They, furthermore, claim that the authenticity of such a setting-the fact that an educated couple likes Jimmy and Alison would not have chosen to live in such miserable conditions in reality-must not be questioned (Ibid:, 195). Among these are land Scott-kilvert (1957) and Alan Carter (Osborne, 1957) who agree their assumption that the point of choosing:

This kind of setting does not lie in whether it is convincing or not, in whether it represents a social truth and pertains to facts or not in their view, it is meant to be taken metaphorically and as serving a contrasting element between Jimmy's idealistic aspirations and the dull reality of his actual surroundings, for the regular of the ménage was surely intended by the hero, consciously or not, to be a slap in the face for the bourgeois concept of Home, as an ideal demanding time, money, and other forms of sacrifice (Scott-kilvert, 1957: 26-7).

It may be of some relevance to discuss at this point the discrepancy among Osborne’s reviewers as regards his heroic occupation and economic status. In Act II Scene ii, Alison tells her father, Colonel Red fern, that her husband, though a university graduate, makes his living by running a sweet – stall (Osborne, 1973: 64) in a local market in a provincial town at which information the Colonel gives vent to his surprise, thus exclaiming: “Sweet - stall. It does seem an extraordinary, thing for an educated young man to be occupying himself with. Why should he want to do that, of all things? I've always thought he must be quite clever in his way.” (Ibid:, 65).

To this, Alison retorts: “Oh, he tried so many things journalism, advertising, even vacuum cleaners for a few weeks.” (Ibid: ,64). Apparently, however, Jimmy Porter works in a sphere unbefitting to his intellectual qualifications and distinguished talents. In short, he is a misplaced person, as evidenced by his father- in - law's reaction at the knowledge of

35 his occupation. Nevertheless, arguments are raised in relation to the validity of the author's statement regarding Jimmy's career on the realistic level. In this connection, two opposing parties emerge. The first supports the view that the rebel hero, with all his miserable social conditions, is only a dramatic character who finds no counterpart in English society, and the second group is of the conflicting opinion that he is a factual person who is to be taken as a representative figure of the majority of the younger generation in England in 1956. (Osborne, 1973: 64).

Stephen Spender (1958) claims that “Jimmy is not a 'real' person because, statistically speaking, he is not supposed to exist in a Welfare State which, to him, has ensured economic security. Therefore, the argument goes on, Osborne's hero is an intended" defiance of the socially real.” (113). Simon Trussler’s assumption (Taylor, 1974: 40) is that “Jimmy chooses his job willingly, that furthermore, he cannot be considered as standing for a whole generation.” Moreover, he presumes with Spender that:

The material facts in the play are drastically inaccurate, as the hero takes for his residence much more squalid surroundings than the economics of any confectioner cashing- in on the abolition of sweet - rationing could dictate. He further adds that Jimmy proves to be an existentialist who is not actually a proletarian and that he chooses a profession which is a part of a complex process of self- identification with a lost, proletarian innocence, as alien to the actual, university - educated Jimmy as the Spanish Civil War. (Ibid., 54).

Gerald Weales (1958), on the other hand, attributes the choice of the rebel hero's profession to his utter rejection of compromise in a class-dominated society (300). A. C. Ward (1964) however, “can find no excuse for Jimmy’s choice to work in sweet ball and he is, therefore, induced to consider it a sign of personal inadequacy” (60), whereas A.A. Metwally (1971) shows a certain amount of understanding when viewing Jimmy as expressing the sentiments felt by a wide group of Osborne generation, nevertheless, manifests inaccuracy in presuming that the rebel hero of Look Back in Anger prefers to set up a sweet stall, rather than seek a job befitting high qualifications and training. A contrasting view is held by another group of critics (Banham, 1969: 5) who have in common the assumption:

36 Jimmy Porter reflects the mood of the post-war era in Britain, that he is not an idiosyncratic but a collective character whose frustrations and experiences are widely shared by the vast majority of educated young intellectuals who, owing to their proletarian origin, are not allowed to occupy position, befitting their high education and numerous talents.

To this effect, Kenneth Tynan (1961:193) comments:

The salient thing about Jimmy Porter was that we are the under-thirty generation in Britain-recognized him on sight. We had met him; we had pub- crawled with him; we had shared bed - sitting -rooms with him. For the first time the theatre was speaking to us in our own language, on our own terms.

One may maintain here, however, that Jimmy's profession is inappropriate to his capabilities as a university graduate, and that the faults lie in the English system which is largely dominated by class - structure and which does not provide opportunities for working. Class people of considerable talents, hence ultimately hinder any likely advancement on their part.

However, in addition to the economic reason discussed above, another cause for the rebel hero's rebellion is the press. It is to be noticed that the first Act starts with Jimmy and his working - class friend Cliff seated in two armchairs, reading newspapers, while the former protesting:

“Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as weeks. Different books -same reviews ....I've dust read three whole columns on the English Hovel. Half of it is in French.” (Osborne, 1973: 10-11).

“It is somewhat obvious that the hero's assault on the "posh" Sunday papers in particular, and the press in general is due, in the main, to the dishonesty of reviewers and journalist. This is clearly manifest in two distinct aspects: repetition and illegibility.” (Carter, 1974: 23). Jimmy Porter is greatly outraged by English book- reviewers for delibe- rately deceiving people as apparently depicted in their issuing unchanging reviews, on changing subjects. Another relevant, cause for his revolt against the press, is the fact that it encourages social barriers by virtually.

37 Presenting articles intentionally written for the elite find' half of which is written, in a foreign language, thus making them completely unintelligible to the working - classes. One may notice that not only to Jimmy's revolt directed against the English press, but also that the rebel heroes deep sentiments are with the proletariat, being his original background (Ibid:, 23). Apparently, Osborne shares his hero's attitude towards journalists, especially those of the gutter press, as evidenced in the writer's dedication to his own musical The World of Paul Slickey:

“To the liars and self-deceivers ; those who daily deal out treachery to those who handle their professi.cn as instruments of debasement ; to those who … betray my country ... This entertainment is decided to their freedom , their incomprehension, their distaste.” (Bradbrook, 1965: 187).

It is to be noted, in this respect, that “class consciousness forms one of the prime factors in Jimmy's consent rebellion. As formerly stated, he belongs, doubtlessly, to a working class background.” (Tynan, 1961: 192). Cliff, on the other hand, Frankly admits to their proletarian origin as he announces his profound sympathies with his friend in front of the latter's wife, Alison: “Well, I suppose he and I think the same about a lot of things, because we’re alike in some we both come from working people” (Osborne, 1973: 30).

In fact, Osborne's rebel hero pursues an insistent war vehement against his wife's middle - class family. His words with reference to Cliff's proletarian background: “well, you are. You're just a peasant” (Ibid:, 11). These remarks have sometimes been mistakenly interpreted as a remark intentionally aimed at underrating the social class to which his friend Cliff belongs. However, its implications are twofold: in addition to its apparent assertion of Cliff's working - class origin, it underlies a preliminary step to initiate well- planned assault on Alison's bourgeois parents. Hence, his words directed to his wife: “You’re not a peasant are you?” (Ibid:, 11), which obviously allude to the couple's belonging to two entirely different social strata.

“A definite consequence in the revolt heralded by Jimmy Porter is an unreserved and outspoken animosity to bourgeois ethos and decadent morality.” (Brustein, 1965: 9). Trussler puts it as: “he pursues a consistently relentless war against all the members of his

38 wife's upper-class family, working-class as he assuredly is.” (1969: 10). Significantly, this rebellion is by no means confined to the individual level, nor is it a mere manifestation of Jimmy’s complete distrust of Alison's middle - class parent. Besides his own personal involvement in this class conflict, “his revolt nevertheless embodies forceful, connotations. It is a social crusade fought an ultimately defined target, namely the whole of English class- structure.” (Evans, 1968: 195). This standpoint is clearly evidenced in Alison's statement to her father; in complaining about her husband’s hostile attitude to the upper middle:

“He hates all of us” (Osborne, 1973: 65). Moreover, the proletarian character inherent in Jimmy’s class war is, undoubtedly, manifest in his unreserved for, and deep sympathy class charwoman and the mother of his friend .Hugh, when in hospital on the verge of death, she was alone” Jimmy recalls,” and I was. The only one with her (Ibid:, 73).

“One may refer here to the fact that Osborne shares. Me rebel hero of Look Back in Anger in favouring working class vitality to bourgeois stiffness.” (Marowitz, 1962: 52).

This preference on the part of the dramatist is, more or less, related to his incessant concern to establish a theatre of feeling, (Osborne, 1957: 61-84), whose chief aim is to awaken the feelings of the majority of his middle-class audience by shaking them out of their nonchalance and ultimately bringing them to an awareness of their roles as responsible individuals. It is to be noted that in 'Osborne's essay “They call it Cricket”; the writer displays [Jimmy’s] complacent assumptions about the inherent value of his class origins (Weales, 1958: 301).

He describes with admiration the vigorous vitality of his mother's wife-king - class parents' who "talked about their troubles in a way … that would embarrass any middle class observer…. even if they did get drunk and fight, they were responding; they were not defeated.” (Osborne, 1957: 80). In fact, one may maintain that Jimmy's favourite target and simultaneously, an important motive for his revolt is English class-structure.

This accounts for his constant attacks against Alison's middle - class parents. “One may be led to the conclusion that, on the whole, Alison's family is regarded, throughout the play, as a representative, even symbolic, entity in which all the inherent negative qualities

39 and stale conventions of the bourgeoisie to which the rebel hero is greatly opposed are combined. Jimmy's strong resentment of the upper -classes drives him to describe his wife's parents as “militant arrogant and full of malice” (Osborne, 1973: 19). Likewise, he mercilessly attacks the bourgeoisie mainly for its dead conventions, and false morality. (Ibid:, 19).

It is noteworthy that Osborne's attitude as regards the malpractices of the upper middle-class is identical with Jimmy Porter's. He is a writer mostly concerned with social revolt. Therefore, he may be termed a social- dramatis whom Robert Brustein (Osborne, 1958: 22) defines as one whose main preoccupation is the concentration on man in conflict with the established conventions of his society. In fact, Osborne, as Scott-kilvert maintains that “a dramatist reacts violently against the tastes, manners, and traditions of the upper bourgeoisie,” (1957: 27). This is starkly apparent in the hero's ironical description of the false morality of the upper-classes in Act II. Scene I of Look Back in Anger (Ibid:, 49).

Moreover, Jimmy Porter's pursuit of a class-war as well as his spiteful revenge on those descending from a higher social stratum take the form of a social collective rebellion initiated by the working - class people against the clashes higher in the social scale (Ibid:, 43 ). This idea is confirmed in the deliberate use of war terminology in those sections of the play where the hero clashes with characters of higher social class. Alison relates to her upper middle - class friend Helena how, shortly after her marriage, Jimmy made an alliance with his proletarian friend Hugh, according to which: “They both came to regard (her) as a sort of hostage from those sections of society they had declared war on.” (Ibid:, 43). Consequently, they began, out of sheer spite, to invite themselves to social gatherings and house parties of middle-class' friends of Alison's family, during which they played in role of blackmailers and plunderers, while the wife is considered as "enemy territory” (Ibid:, 43) to them.

In fact Jimmy's rebellion against his wife’s class transcends to include the causes for his marriage to her, since she has apparently married Alison for two reasons: love finds revenge, she declares to her own father as following:

40 “Perhaps it was revenge… Some people do actually marry for revenge. People like Jimmy, anyway. Or perhaps he should have been another Shelley, and can't understand new why, I’m not another Mary, and you're not William Godwin” (Osborne, 1973: 67)

Likewise, when Alison leaves as a result of Jimmy's constant onslaughts on all that she and her entire family represent, her position is filled by Helena, and the hero's class-war is ultimately renewed with a slight alteration, namely the character criticized. As a consequence, the vocabulary used is noticeable for the war terminology pervading it in which terms like ‘enemy’, ‘win’, ‘weapon’, ‘victorious’ and campaign ‘recur’. Moreover, Jimmy calls Helena “one of [his] natural enemies” (Ibid:, 35) whose ultimate aim is to win Alison on her side (Ibid:, 51). In fact, her “attraction for Jimmy ... lies in the conquest of a social opposite” (Trussler, 1969: 10), in a battle: in which he is victorious. This is explicitly portrayed in his own words directed to her: “You made a good enemy, didn't you? What they call a worthy opponent. But when people put down their weapons, it doesn't mean they’ve necessarily stopped fighting” (Osborne, 1973: 86).

It is to be observed that Jimmy’s rebellion is as much caused by economic and social factors as by political ones. He manifests a starkly antagonistic political stance in regard to the Government, This anti-governmental position is common to a major part of Osborne's rebels, especially those of The Blood-of the Bamberg, The Entertainer and Time president In Look Back in Anger, however, Jimmy forcibly revolts against the Conservatives who were in power in 1956- the year in which the play was written. It is noteworthy to indicate here that through the hero’s direct rebellion against the privileged upper middle class man as represented by Alison’s brother Nigel, he manages, rather indirectly, to pour his harsh invective against the English Conservative Party, its candidates and constituents as well as the array end its officer corps (Osborne, 1973: 86).

Moreover, he shows an apparent distrust of English politicians in general. Thus Nigel, the bourgeois officer and candidate of the Tories, is at once flouted at for his personal drawbacks as well as taken as a symbol of English politicians, against whose dishonesty Jimmy revolts (Ibid:, 86). Thus, from a personal criticism of Nigel: “The

41 straight- backed, chinless wonder from Sand Hurst.... The Platitude from Outer Space,” (Ibid:, 20).

Jimmy moves to direct his public attacks against all Tory constituents and Members; of Parliament. “Somewhere at the back of [Migel’s] mind is the vague knowledge that he and his pals have been plundering and foolishing everybody for generation.” (Ibid:, 20). Consequently, the rebel hero initiates an assault on the whole body of the cabinet as reflected in Migel’s individual character. To this effect, he ironically comments on their vague policy and lack of patriotism:

Besides, [Migel] is a patriot-and an English¬man, and he doesn't like the idea, that he may have been selling out his countrymen, all these years, so.... [he] seeks,. Sanctuary in his own stupidity. The only way to keep things as much like they always have been as possible, is to make, any alternative too much for your poor, tiny brain to grasp.

(Osborne, 1973: 20).

However, it must be stressed that not only is Jimmy Porter, together with his post- war generation, greatly suspicious of Tory social policy, but also shows a considerable deal of distrust of the. Two Labour Governments which succeeded the Second World War and resigned during the years (1945- 1955) (Osborne, 1973: 20). A: brief historical sketch of

Labour rule during these ten years is important for a better understanding of the real motives for Jimmy's social as well-as political rebellion.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, a Labour Government with a clear majority came into power in England. However, the victory of Labour at the polls was, in the main, due to its supporters of the younger post - war generation who belonged mostly to the working - classes. As a result, Clement Attlee’s Government announced its commitment to a program of social and political policy which claimed to recognize the fact that the world had changed (Banham, 1969: 13).

Accordingly, the younger people visualized a Welfare State (Gregg, 1960-1963: 547). In which social equality could be attained, Labour proceeded with its long - term program which chiefly included the nationalization of basic British industries and services.

42 It had a second term of power (1950-1955), during which more steady improvements on the political and social plans were achieved by the Welfare State, in spite of some restrictions caused by income and purchase taxes. The fact that those years witnessed a considerable amount of prosperity on all levels was undoubtedly recognized by all parties concerned Labour Conservative and Liberal (Millgate, 1957: 429).

However, among other British Left-Wing institution “Labour proved to be remarkably backward - looking and conservative in essence.” (Magee, 1962: 148). Many socialist members of the society refused to acknowledge that the world changed, and they were closely attached to the dogmatic principles of another age, particularly the 19th century. As a consequence, the younger generation of a working-' class background, who comprised the vast majority of Labour supporters, were greatly disillusioned at the realization that their own visions of a 'New Britain as heralded by Labour in 1945 failed to materialize (Gregg, 1960-1963: 555). Thus, their dreams of “a Socialist England, a New Jerusalem in which social justice could be achieved were shattered, for the Socialist Government's function [was] not to abolish the profit motive but to guide Labour and Capital in double harness in their mutual interest.” (Hopkins, 1963: 83).

It is to be noted also that, despite the free education offered to brilliant working - class people who later formed the new intellectual of non-upper-class origin (generally abbreviated as non-intelligentsia) the graduated from State-aided universities-class - structure prevented their advancement in society (Osborne, 1973: 42). Jimmy Porter is a symbol of this particularly frustrated group. His wife admits to his university education, received from one of the provincial, state - aided universities, for "according to him, it's not even red brick, but white tile” (Osborne, 1973: 42).

Being of a working - class origin, Jimmy's education proves of no avail to him as he received his education at a minor provincial university, and not Oxford or Cambridge. This ascertains the fact that in spite of ten years of Socialist Governments in post-war Britain, class remained a great obstacle to achievement as the ' Old Gang network (or the bourgeoisie ) still exerted a considerable influence on the affairs of the country (Ibid:, 42). The result is rebellion on the part of English working - class intellectuals, whose first

43 spokesman in the theatre is Jimmy Porter, whose. Initiative is blocked by dint of his living in a class -dominated society. As Bryan Magee Millgate asserts that the absence of social justice and discrimination between classes were prevalent. This is put as:

“The notion that we now have equality even of opportunity in Britain is a myth. The great majority of people stay in the class into which they were born, regardless of their merit. Untalented members of the under and upper middle- class stay in that class” (1957: 429).

Jimmy's revolt in Look Back in Anger is concerned with changing the inherited class-structure in England as well as expressing his generation's great despair with the result of Labour rule in which the Establishment still reigned. In other words, “Osborne's rebel hero represents the despair of a generation that has only bitter memories of past betrayals of ideals.” (Gassner, 1960: 174). Alison also recognizes this fact when she tells her father that her husband “is hurt because everything is the same.” (Osborne, 1973: 68).

Moreover, Osborne’s hero of Look Back in Anger “thoroughly committed to the working - classes but does not show any sort of political commitment” (Rogoff, 1966: 30) to either Labour or Conservative politicians. Since he has been betrayed by both. likewise, Osborne shares Jimmy’s Left-Wing tendencies but nonetheless pours his onslaughts on both parties in his essay “A Letter to My Fellow Countrymen”, which is immersed in hate against those Englishmen who in his own view, have corrupted the country and are the direct cause of its present decay, namely its incompetent politicians. "There is murder in my brain, and I carry a knife in my heart for every one of you, Macmillan, and you, Gaitskell, you particularly” (Taylor, 1975: 68).

This antagonistic position leads him to direct his attacks against England as a whole: “my favourite fantasy is four minutes or so non-commercial viewing as you fry... preferably with our condoning democratic constituents.” (Ibid:, 68). Apparently, Osborne’s target in the above quotation is not England. Rather its Philistine politicians constitute the basic, deep-rooted causes for his rebellious position (Taylor, 1975: 68). However, it must be made clear that Osborne's attitude regarding his country has no negative insinuations; on the contrary, it springs from deeply felt love and care for the fate of England, In her defence of

44 Osborne's essay, “A Letter to My Fellow Countrymen” (qtd. in Metwally, 70) Shellagh Delaney maintains:

“if we all cared as much as John Osborne does about the fate of England and the rest of the world, then we wouldn't have to live in a state of permanent crisis”

On the other hand, Jimmy’s patriotism is one may “assume a clear denominator of his creator's” (Tynan, 1968: 13). Throughout Look Back in Anger, he is the only person who cares. On reading a particular newspaper, he despairingly comments as “nobody reads it except me. Nobody can be bothered.” (Osborne, 1973: 15). But this love for England, which may reach the verge of bias, is more vividly portrayed in his complimentary words with relation to Vaughan Williams’s music.” (Ibid:, 17).

One may maintain, without hesitation, that Jimmy's rebellion, which is representative of his post-war generation, is chiefly caused by the Second World War results. For the war itself is, by necessity, the major motive for Jimmy's revolt. On the whole, almost-all the other causes (such as class system, politics, economic crisis etc.) are the logical consequences of this main motive. In this respect, Jimmy's experience represents a widespread phenomenon shared by the majority of his contemporaries whose lives have been greatly shaped by their painful memories of the atrocities of the war (Osborne, 1973: 17). The author of Look Back in Anger voices more than individual reaction when he admits:

“I come out of a generation that grew up during the war, and that is what one is....I hate the... Germans and I always will and I believe most people of my generation always will.” (Tynan, 1968: 13). Moreover, Jimmy's generation chooses to rebel as a result of his loss of ideals after the second cosmic war. “For in the post war period and approximately round the year, 1956, the hopes of the young were greatly shattered as they witnessed the decline of their political ideal - socialism in Western Europe in general, and in Prance and West, Germany in particular” (Hopkins, 1963: 373).

Other significant causes (Knight, 1963: 48) play a disproportional “role in this formation of the rebel Jimmy Porter”. In fact, “his generation of British young intellectuals

45 saw that the war did not bring forth the long-awaited peace, as resulted in the splitting of the world into diverse ideology.” (Metwally, 1971: 70). This new consequence of the war threatened the young with the fear of another cosmic "holocaust". These feelings were even greatly intensified by the Hungarian Uprising in 1965 and the severe methods which were taken to crush it. Like the Spanish Civil War, the uprising was for the English Left a mark of:

“The final deflation, the last weary sigh in that curious' un English delirium which had gripped so many of the intellectuals in the Red Decade.” (Hopkins, 1963: 378).

Another important target for Osborne’s hero of Look Back in Anger is the Suez War of 1956. Being an intellectual, Jimmy expresses the utter disappointment felt by the majority of young intellectual Britons at the collusion of Britain and Prance with Israel against Egypt which erupted in the Suez War and was to bring forth unavoidable disasters to the English people (Osborne, 1973: 15). In Act I of Look Back in Anger, the hero wholly condemns Britain's part in the Suez crisis which, in his case, is a great pronator of rebellion;" Somebody said, (Rogers, 1962: 310) we get our cooking from Paris (that's a laugh), our politics from Moscow, and our morals from Port Said.” (Ibid:, 17).

Another source of disturbance on Jimmy's part is the fact that in 1956 Britain was no longer an empire of first - rate power. Its loss of India marks the beginning of England's complete decay (Ibid:, 16). This constituted the last straw which provided Jimmy and his young contemporaries with a sense of the futility of their present world. Apparently, Jimmy represents the feeling of his generation when in Act I of the play, he gives articulation to his forceful protest against a futile existence. Furthermore, he vehemently deplores the predominance of routine which, in effect, is due to the complete absence of opportunities which would raise him to significant action. Hence his fierce attack sloth and inertia:

“God, how I hate Sundays it's always so depressing, always the same. We never seem to get, any further, do we? Always the same ritual. Reading the papers, drinking tea, ironing ....Our youth is slipping away, Do you know that?” (Ibid:, 15).

46 “Consequently, Jimmy vehemently hails a life of enthusiasm second gentile human relationships which, more or less, is nonexistent at the present” (Osborne, 1973: 35). His actual present world is void of worthy principles: “Nobody thinks, nobody cares, He believes, no convictions and no enthusiasm.” (Ibid:, 17). Indeed, “Jimmy's rebellion is ultimately the logical result of his living in a world which, in essence of a sequence of broken hierarchies; discredited values. And collapsed institutions of traditional culture.” (Brustein, 1965: 5). Thus his desperate cry is as following:

“I suppose people of our generation aren't able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us, in the thirties and the forties, when we were entail kids (in his familiar, serial serious mood. There aren't any good, brave causes left.” (Osborne, 1973: 84).

It is significant to point out, at this stage, that Jimmy's outburst above must not be taken at its face value. For his rebellion is not, in actual truth, conditioned by the lack of brave causes. This is clearly implied in the stage direction which emphasizes the “semi- serious mood" on the part of the hero when uttering his final statement, his revolt here is, simply and briefly a sign of Grtloulate’s despair. A particular interpretation is further validated by the author himself. Osborne instantly dismisses those critics who believe Jimmy's words above and describes them as shallow heads who:

Were incapable of recognizing the texture of ordinary despair; the way it expresses itself in rhetoric and gestures that, may perhaps look shabby, but are seldom simple. It is too simple to say that Jimmy Porter himself believed that there were no brave causes left (Brown, 1972: 140).

Among the main promoters for Jimmy’s rebellion are 'those concerned with matters of religion and morality? He strongly rebels against the distinct disintegration and final collapse of Victorian morality and. religious faith. “This is even more intensified by another characteristic of post - war years in Britain, namely the manufacture of the atom bomb and the H-bomb. This latter factor provided Jimmy's younger generation with the theatre of cosmic destruction. Moreover, it prevented the fulfilment of their apocalyptic vision -the end of Capitalism.” (Tynan, 1961: 289).

47 Like many of his contemporaries, “Jimmy Porter is a rebel in aid of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament” (Trussler, 1969: 11). As far as Jimmy's relation with religion is concerned, “he attacks the supposedly religious people and servants of the Church, the clergy, for launching a campaign to assist in the manufacturing of the H-bomb, thus vying away from the essence of religion,” (Osborne, 1973: 13). This act is, in Jimmy’s view, a clear divergence from the essentially moral, humanistic role which they must willingly assume.

He, furthermore, attacks the Church for maintaining class distinctions and practicing the bourgeois ethos by siding, with the rich in their war against the joker, working classes

(Ibid:, 14). Evidently, Jimmy's rebellion against the prevailing morality is demonstrated by the malpractices of the Church is positive. In fact, “it is, on his as well as the dramatist's part, plea for true morality, real religion,” (Rogers, 1968: 147).

Jimmy’s reaction against church bells are given as “how the bloody bells have started wrap it up, will you? Stop ringing those bells ... I don't want to hear' them” (Osborne, 1973: 25). It is indicative of his complete indifference to ceremonies attended by the Church, for at the same time that it is clear that the hero’s deep resentment of the church is apparent indulgence in the superficial. It marks the author's passionate concern with the soul of religion.

Furthermore, his rebellion against religious face people takes the form of blaming them for evading their responsibilities' by refusing to face up the problems of the present and retreating into the past (Ibid:, 25). He directs his criticism regarding this point against Helena who is a fitting example for the false religious revival which Jimmy vehemently opposes. Helena and her kind, he asserts, religion as an excuse to escape from the problems and seek refuge into a past world, namely Middle Ages “I know Helena and her kind so- very well. Spend their time mostly looking forward to the pest. The only, please they can see the, ‘light is the Dark Ages. She's moved long ago into a lovely little cottage of the soul cut right off from the ugly .problems of the twentieth century altogether.” (Ibid:, 56).

It is worthwhile to discuss this point Jimmy’s attitude to the past as represented by the world of Alison H father. In the first place, he criticizes the English Putlior J. B.

48 Priestley for living exclusively in the past, thus resembling his father - in - law, who is "still. Casting well-fed glances back to the Edwardian twilight rom his comfortable disenfranchised wilderness (Ibid:, 15).

It is noticeable, however, that despite Jimmy's fierce revolt against the traditional moral codes of the past and his great opposition to old conventions and approximately all that belongs to a past order of things, he still pities Alison's father who is a symbol of all that Jimmy stands against (Ibid:, 16). Jimmy shows a certain amount of understanding sympathy for the Colonel whom he calls an Edwardian Plant still living in a dream world of the England of 1914, and who is incapable of coping with the present situation

However, Jimmy's statement, “If you've no world your own, it's rather pleasant to regret the passing of one else's” (Ibid:, 17). It has been misinterpreted as referring deeply - rooted nostalgia on the hero's part for the values and standards which seemed to prevail in the past, the heralds (Barker, 1966: 370). This view also claims that “Osborne himself betrays some kind of tension between his modern yelp and his Victorian murmur” (Rogoff, 1966: 31). that, furthermore , the dramatist in question “manifests an obvious longing for the past because there existed a sense of community and human contact which the pressures of modern life are rapidly, obliterating” (Gersh, 1967: 142).

J. R. Taylor (1974: 49). alludes to the dignity which, he maintains, “is characteristic of Alison's father's generation, and adds that their security in an apparently secure world is eminently to be envied by someone like Jimmy, who finds no certainty anywhere, outside himself or within”. However, it would be a somewhat mistaken, perhaps greatly false, attitude which adopts the view that the hero, together with his creator, shows a half- admitted preference of the past to the present. For, ultimately, “Jimmy displays a deep dissatisfaction for the Establishment, the false morality and dead institutions of the past as well as rebels kolas the status quo. Hence his utter rejection of either world” (Carter, 1974: 163).

The hero merely shows some pity for of the older generation which, by no means, signifies is acceptance of the Colonel's world to which he attaches the attribute ‘phoney’. In Look Back in Anger, D.H, Karrfalt admits, “unhappily to be not much different past, there

49 is in the present the same silent despair and the same passive acceptance of failure that have always existed in the past from the beginning of the play.” (1970: 79). Jimmy initiates a fierce war against the past, and clearly evidenced in his own description of himself as an “old grey mare that actually once led the charge against the old order,” (Osborne, 1973: 92).

The same is true for John Osborne whose rebellion gains, perhaps, a special force when attacking one of the deadest symbols inherited from the past, namely royalty. When a boy of sixteen, Osborne was expelled from school because, as the headmaster states, “he constantly ridiculed the royal family. His attitude towards the subject is the same, if not increasing in fierceness, for he still directs the heaviest invective against what he terms!! Royalty religion” (Carter, 1974: 9). To Osborne, “the royal symbol is simply valueless, a sign of decay and, furthermore, a monarchic system is the national swill” (1974: 78).

It is noticeable that Colonel Redfern himself makes a clear allusion to the clash of generations as well as recognizes the fact that the hero's world conflicts sharply with his, Thus, his words with relation to Jimmy: “he just speaks a different language from any of us,” (Ibid:, 64). However, Osborne’s sympathetic portrayal of the character of Alison’s lies in the fact that, though a social enemy because of his belonging to a different social stratum, the Colonel shows “a considerable understanding of his son-in- law position in the recognition of his entire family's guilt for pursuing an unfair ferocious war against Jimmy” (Ibid:, 65). Among the most significant causes which form the rebel Jimmy Porter is loneliness and non-communication Being the sole rebel in his own community, he starts to wonder “if there isn't something wrong with him”, moreover, (Ibid:, 14).

He is a frustrated person. He was hurt by the painful realization that in addition to being the only crusader to right values in a wrong world (hence his deeply-felt sense of non-belonging and alienation) (Ibid:, 64). He has been persistently denied any response by those who surround him, most significantly his wife. In this respect, that Jimmy’s rebellion is indicative of Osborne's rebellious character is in reality a true reflection of his creator's inclination to nonconformity and dissent, (Rogers, 1968: 164). which is apparently the result of his deep desire to rend the whole centre of power in England, the Establishment, apart, Jimmy expresses- an urgent need for some understanding Alison's part, thus

50 commenting: “Old Porter, and everyone turns over and goes to sleep. And Mrs Porter gets me going with the first yawn.” (Osborne, 1974: 11).

At this stage, one may assume Alison’s almost complete refusal to listen to her husband of anger is due to two closely related factor social classes. Individual suffering from the prevalent sense of non- communication between husband and wife in Look .Back in Anger is symbol of the nature lotion between the working-classic and the upper bourgeoisie to which 'they respectively belong.(“Jimmy stifled with the non- existence of healthy, bearable human relationship and the predominance of the cramped, pusillanimous form of life.” (Marowitz, (ed.), 1970: 114). His great emotional loss and persistent need for community in an uncomprehending world is the logical consequence in Alison's conscious battle against her husband (Karrfalt, 1970: 78).

It is significant to allude the fact that Alison's revolt takes the form, of an outwardly personal battle, but is, however an essentially social war against a social enemy. In spite of her knowledge of her husband's apparent need for companionship, she admits to Cliff, “I pretended not to be listening to Jimmy - because I knew that would hurt him, I suppose." (Osborne, 1974: 28). Moreover, she keeps her friendly allegiances with her family (Ibid:, 36) “by constantly writing letters to them regardless of their ruthless war against Jimmy and his apparently continuous warns to reject her former world” (Deming, 1959: 413).

Another psychological cause for Jimmy's rebellion which is more or less related to the social class factor discussed above, is, as has formerly been mentioned, that concerned with Jimmy's personal suffering, “Alison is incapable of sharing her husband's view on life because, being middle-class she shows a complete detachment and uneasiness to understand his psychic condition.” (Beavan, 1956: 74). Jimmy is angry because of two personal experiences, both of which are concerned with death among other reasons. Jimmy is a rebel because when he was only ten years old, he had to watch the slow death of his father who died miserably and abandoned by all his relations (Ibid:, 101). This apparently painful experience on Jimmy’s part provided him with impotent anger, as made clear in his violent rage at those surrounding him (Alison Cliff and Helena):

51 “I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry - angry and helpless, I. knew more about love… betrayal …. and death, when I was ten years old than you will probably ever know all your life.” (Osborne, 1973: 58).

Another setback in Jimmy’s life is represented by the subsequent death of the old working- class woman whom he greatly admires, Mrs Tanner, this second personal loss intensifies, more than before, his sense of loneliness and leaves him almost derelict and in great need for the response and companionship which his wife might offer thus he bursts out:

The wrong people going hungry, the wrong, people being loved, the wrong people dying! was I really, wrong to believe that there's a kind of burning virility of mind and spirit that looks for something as powerful as itself ? The heaviest, strongest creatures in this world seem to be the loneliest That voice that cries out doesn't have to be a weakling's, does it ?

(Ibid:, 94).

It may be worthwhile to mention at this stage some of the comparisons frequently made between Jimmy Porter end the other literary rebels; Jim. Dixon of Kingsley Amis; novel Lucky Jim (Balakian, 1959: 256), and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Bradbrook, 1959: 187).

On the one hand, Jimmy and Jim Dixon come from a post-war generation and belong to the same class of State aided university students. Moreover, both are rebels maladjusted to their environment; they choose to revolt against the traditional codes of their society and share a similar distrust of the older generation, bourgeoisie and the Establishment in general (Taylor, 1975: 51). Yet, they display dissimilar approaches in defying the objects of their dissatisfaction for, while Lucky Jim resorts to comedy and shows no willingness to change the status, Jimmy takes refuge in outward rebellion, trying to achieve social change (Tynan, 1961: 130).

On the other hand, Jimmy has intellectuality and deep mental energy; moreover, both have a definite attitude towards the world they are totally convinced of. It is to use

52 Shakespeare's phrase, “out of Joint” (Ibid:, 50). Nevertheless, one may identify two points of departure between the two rebels: The first is that, Jimmy reacts violently against inertia and mental lethargy and, moreover he shows an awareness of the deep rooted causes for his rebellion as well as a well-planned course of action which he intends to undertake, the second noticed divergence resides in the fact that, contrary to Wilson Knight's assumptions (Knight, 1963: 48-54).

“Osborne does not suffer from the Oedipus complex nor does his father's death weight his mind as the death of Hamlet's father on his. It is, therefore, a sign of inaccuracy to state that Osborne’s Look Back in Anger has for hero a reincarnation of Hamlet.” (Ibid:, 50).

One may conclude that whatever the parallels between Jimmy Porter and other rebel heroes in literature, one point remains certain. It is that, often enough, the divergence outweighs the similarities. This is, perhaps, due to the fact that Osborne's hero undergoes a unique experience which is simultaneously individual as well as collective and belonging exclusively to the 1950s in Britain (Osborne, 1973: 27).

As far as Cliff is concerned, it is noticeable that at the beginning of Look Back in Anger, he is represented as an apparently escapist and largely dependent character, despite his proletarian origin, lacks his friend’s. Jimmy’s courage to fight against a hostile world is obvious. He admits being somewhat afraid of confronting the alone: “I do not think I'd have the courage to live lay own again - in spite of everything” (Ibid:, 27). However, “it is a sign of a new awareness on his part that he suddenly comes to the recognition of his social role as a responsible working - class individual” (Carter, 1974: 189).

Porter, at the end of the play, announces his rejection of all things that belong to his past occupation, and his style of living and decides to better his condition by starting his life anew (Osborne,28). He is now, more or less, converted, into a rebel though still a pacifist, who admits his readiness to fight alone, hence his words to Alison before his departure “I have just thought of trying somewhere different. The sweet - stalls all right, but I think I'd like to try something else.” (Osborne, 1973: 83). Likewise, Alison, who could

53 not understand Jimmy's real motives for rebellion, as evidenced clearly when she confides in Helena, I still can't bring myself to feel the way he does about things.

“I can't believe that he’s right somehow” (Ibid:, 42) nor share her husband's attitude to the working- class- she condescendingly describes Mrs. Tanner as rather ordinary. What Jimmy insists on calling working – class, nevertheless achieves awareness at the end of the play It may be significant to make allusion to Alison’s slightly rebellious (Ibid:, 64).

“In past as evidently demonstrated in her one defiance against the middle class security of her and flight into a life of undeniable danger by the frustrated Jimmy Porter. However, after a miscarriage she returns home with a complete transformation.” (Spacks, 1968: 68). This new painful experience on her part drives her to make an utter denunciation of the old bourgeois morality – “Helena - even I gave up be living in the divine rights of marriage” (Osborne, 1973: 89), and she shares her husband's views regarding the decadent book of rules, as regards the rebel Jimmy; his anti- escapist views must be duly stressed (Ibid:, 93). In this respect, he comments on the former appeal for escape on his wife’s and Cliff's part: “they all want to escape from the pain of being alive,” (Ibid:, 93), but the will to fight and the, wide -'world outside is more apparent in apparent in Jimmy‘s refusal to accompany his working-class friend Hugh, Mrs. Tanner's son, to China and leave his country forever (Ibid:, 46).

As a consequence, “Alison recalls, Jimmy accused Hugh of giving up, and he thought it was wrong of him to go off forever. Undoubtedly, Jimmy's rebellion is positive.” (Carter, 1974: 55). Behind his constantly rebellious attitude is the aim to abolish the power of the Establishment and to establish a world in which formidable values and social justice can hopefully be attained. However, his inability to take action on a wide social level (Osborne, 1973: 90) is due essentially to own society which will not permit any initiation to take significant action on his part. In this respect, his rebellion is representative of a widely shared dilemma in his defence of Osborne. Arnold Wesker states:

“This is a man with teeth clenched? Desperately frustrated because he can do no tiling I know what he feels and so do hundreds of thousands of others.” qtd., in Metwally, 1961: 72).

54 In addition to this, Jimmy obviously realizes that he is the sole rebel in his particular community that, consequently, his revolt is doomed to remain futile if he did not shake off those surrounding him out of their complacency and mental inertia. Hence his persistent attacks against Alison whom he impulsively intends to bring down to his own class Only through experiencing pain will Alison be on Jimmy's level, comprehend his real motives for rebellion, and, ultimately, assist him in battling against a frustrating world (Osborne, 1973: 90). Therefore, he blasphemously rages at her if you could have a child, and it would die. Let it grow; “let a recognizable human face emerge from that little mess of indie rubber and wrinkles. Please, if only I would watch you face that, I wonder if you might even become recognizable human being yourself.” However, Alison undergoes this experience which can be considered as “a turning point signifying her newly found awareness, for after her loss of the baby, Alison returns home as a completely transformed person, rebels against her old faith in her innocence,” (Balakian, 1959: 261), and furthermore, announces her readiness “to take part in society as a responsible individual. Undoubtedly, it is a sign of Jimmy’s final victory over the bourgeoisie” (Samara, 1966: 133), when his wife joins the working class, thus defeated admitting to him:

“I was wrong, I was wrong ! I don't want to be neutral, I don't want to be a saint, I want to' be a lost cause. I want to be corrupt and futile! ... It's cost you your, child, and any others I might have had. I'm in the mud at last! Groveling! I'm crawling”. (Osborne, 1973: 95).

It may be of significance to indicate that “Alison’s inability to give birth to another child is implicitly intended to symbolize the barrenness of the upper - bourgeoisie and its ultimate decadence.” (Al-samara, 1966: 137). Consequently, Alison changes into a rebel who is ready to share with Jimmy the pains and pleasures of living. As Karrfalt accurately claims “it is only after has brought Alison to -or through -this terrible suffering that they can feel safe together” (1970: 78). As far as the concluding passage in the play is concerned, there is a notable discrepancy among the critics, For, some (Gascoigne, 1962: 197), are inclined to interpret the final reconciliatory scene as an explicit indication of the

55 appeal to escape on the part of both Jimmy and his wife Alison. Others refer to the unsatisfactory finale of the play (Bradbrook, 1965: 187). Regarding this point, Spender puts it as:

“so much hatred , corruption ,and violence has been asked to be redeemed by a love affair , that one doubts whether any relationship could stand the strain,” (Spender, 1 958: 75).

Moreover, the second group of critics mentioned above claim that the play lacks any solution, (Kilvert, 1958: 29). It merely states the problem, and ends inconclusively, (Gassner, 1960: 175) with nothing altered at the end of it,

The final speech of Jimmy's reads as follows: We'll be together in our bear's cave, and our squirrel's dry, and we'll live on honey and nuts lots and lots of nuts ... There are cruel steel traps lying about everywhere, just waiting for rather mad, slightly satanic, and very timid little animals.

(Osborne, 1973: 96).

However, Jimmy's words above have frequently been interpreted as referring explicitly to an escapist world, as represented by the animal imagery of the bear and squirrel to which the couple often used to resort as a kind of shield against the harsh reality of the world outside (Osborne, 1973: 11). However, one may assume that the conclusion is far from being the one intended by the author, Bomber Gascoigne asserts how Terry Richardson, the director of Look Back in Anger, in a discussion after the first performance of the play, denied that it was circular or that the end was one of despair: “It was a hopeful play, he said, their relationship had improved, they were playing the game of bears and squirrels with irony and for the last time.” (Brown, 1972: 138).

This reading of the ending passage is further validated by the very fact that in the published text of the play, the passage is precluded by a stage direction which makes an explicit reference to the ironical intention of the statement on the part of the author. Thus:

“He looks down at her, full of fatigue, and says with a kind of mocking, tender irony,” (Osborne, 1973: 96).

56 One may conclude that the play manifests a hope-ending. Alison descends from her upper - class position chooses to be a working-class member who is willingly to join her husband in his crusade to effect a change a better world. These are the positive aspects that the play is concerned, nevertheless, the play is active in one respect, and namely that it offers no real alternatives to Jimmy's problems (Carter, 1974: 56).

3.2. The Entertainer

In a prefatory note to the text of The Entertainer John Osborne writes “the music hall is dying, and, with it, a significant part of England some of the heart of England has gone something that once belonged to everyone, for this was a truly folk art” (Osborne, 1974: 7). It is evident that the author's statement above forcibly ascertains the rather symbolic relationship in the play between the art of the music-hall on the one hand and England on the other.

This crumbling, decadent art form is representative of the state of the country in question and a fitting symbol for its decay, the last stages of the declining English music- hall tradition as an equation with the vesting senility of England and the fading of the fortunes of the British Empire in the 1950s, concentrating, in the main, on the era succeeding the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the consequent eruption of the Suez War 1956 (Evans, 1968: 195).

’ The Entertainer may, therefore, be regarded as John Osborn s diagnosis of the sickness afflicting the entirety of English society and his portrayal of the social and political void predominating in the country's Post - war record. For his symbol of national decadence, chooses a group of rundown vaudevillians (Osborne, 1957: 27).

In fact, one may assume that, besides being an unsuccessful music-hall comedian, Archie Rice, the hero of The Entertainer is meant to be an incarnation (Ibid:, 56) of the declining state of the century, he sums up its condition and approximately personifies it Moreover, in his person are epitomized the decaying British theatre and music hall tradition as well as the disintegration of the English people. This view is especially conveyed in the

57 music hall, numbers in The Entertainer which chiefly comment on the action. The prevalent theme of the numbers is:

“ ...the world is rotten, riddled with apathy, and the theatre, as we see it and as it is summed up in the person of. Archie, is the symbol of this state of decay audience and actors are equally inert.” (Taylor, 1974: 48).

It is noticeable that Osborne stresses the same idea above when in Act II, he makes Archie Idea give vent to his ironical advice, which, verges on the border of cynicism,, to the audience : “ Don't clap too hard -it's a very old building.” (Osborne, 1947: 59).

As formerly mentioned, the role of the vaudeville actor Archie Pace is not restricted to the mere symbolic portrayal of the social and political caricature of the British Empire in an abstract manner (Carter, 1974: 67). “The stage clichés included in the stage numbers, or direct comment end illumination to the actual daily of the idea family.” (Gassner, 1960: 177).

Gassner even goes as far as presuming that Archie, in addition to his representation of Britain as a whole, is also symbolic of bankrupt humanity and. the decay of the world, thus, describing Osborne's music-hall actor as indicative of the whole of tawdry, bumbling, and persistent humanity this slouching, slithering, grimly merrymaking comic's apologetic eyes and hunched - up shoulders spoke for all bankrupt mankind. (Ibid:, 178).

Apart from Gassner’s somewhat exaggerated view of the universality of Archie Rice’s character, the fact remains:

“The 'Rice’s vaudevillian dynasty is meant to stand for the present, the past and the future of England. Moreover, throughout the play, a vague implication is made, namely that the Rice family lives by standards which lack conviction and which are eventually doomed to die.” (Trussler, 1969: 62). The music-hall is indicative of a declining way of life. This idea is given due emphasis by the author, as clearly evidenced in the words of Billy Rice, father, who used to be a greatly successful music comedian himself, to his granddaughter Jeans:

58 “He is [Archies a fool…. Putting money into a road - show ..., These-nudes, they’re killing the business. Anyway, I keep telling him- it’s dead already. Has for years. It was all over, finished, dead when I got out of it.” (Osborne, 1974: 18).

Likewise, Billy “a death near the end of the play is a definitely symbolic event which obviously makes Archie inevitable futility to stop history by attempting to perpetuate the past in his very process to revive the art of the music-hall the symbol of Britain’s past glory” (Trussler, 1969: 13).

As a means of conveying his idea about the appearing decline in the fortunes of Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War through the symbol of the music hall, John Osborne adopts a particular technique, according to which the play, like a music of all program or variety bill, is aptly divided into three Acts, each containing a sequence of short numbered scenes or turns which are preceded by an overture and divided by two intermissions (Ibid:, 15). As far as Osborne’s technique in the play is concerned, it is noteworthy that despite the author’s protestation against and vehement denial of adopting Brechtian epic technique in The Entertainer, some features of Brecht’s theatre can be discoursed to have influenced it significantly. The play is structurally a series of realistic “family scenes encased in an Alicino or distancing epic framework of Archie's stage scenes”. (Balakian, 1959: 264).

Moreover, Osborne is Brechtian in that he principally encourages the individual participation in effect- a change in his own society.

Hence the essence of his of Brecht's technical device of the alienation effect in The Entertainer. Nevertheless, major- divergence emerges between the two dramatists regards, the use of this technical device whereas the German dramatist adopts the epic narrative with its sequence of '.short, scenes to create, a certain degree of objectivity- and detached observation on the part of the spectators, Osborne employs the same (Carter, 1974: 32).

Technique to intensify the audience is sympathy by giving special care and strong, emphasis to one main' character Archie Lice in the case of The Entertainer and Martin, Luther in One may conclude in this respect, that despite the epic framework characterizing are there music-hall turn. The Entertainer is far from, being. Brechtian, the main point;

59 about; Brecht’s epic (Ibid:, 34). Theatre is the enhancement of the audience's political and social awareness, and complete exclusion of empathy (Taylor, 1967: 93) as well as an. appeal', to the spectator's reason and; rational thinking. (Ibid:, 92).

On the contrary, Osborne reverses the purposes of the alienation structure by adopting it to seek a deeper emotional involvement of the spectator in the main character. He gives priority to feeling rather than thinking, fact is confirmed in Osborne’s own admission in a Prefatory note to The Entertainer “I have not used some the techniques of the music hall in order to exploit effective trick. ...Its contact is immediate, vital and direct.” (Taylor, 1967: 7).

However, as regards the hero’s motives for rebellion, one prime causes for the revolt of the vaudeville actor Archie Rice derives its foundations from the fact that the entirety of the Pace family suffer from a palpable economic shortage (Ibid;, 11). This is evident in the actuality of the Rice household. The action of The Entertainer takes place in a poor “tall ugly monument” (Taylor, 1967: 12) which constitutes the dwelling place of Archie's family. Moreover, the Rice’s live in the moot miserable, working-class part of a town resort which, owing to its drab conditions! The holiday makers never see (Ibid:. 11).

A full description of it is provided in the stage directions to the first act of the play: “It is not residential,...It is full of dirty blank spaces, high black walls, a gas holder, a tall chimney, a main road that shakes with dust and lorries.” (Ibid:, 11). Furthermore, the hero's financial crisis is clearly assented in Billy's, Archie's father’s exposition to the effect that Achie's wife, Phoebe, rents her absent soldier son's room to a negro (Ibid:, 15). As formerly stated, Archie Pace is a third- rate, seedy music hall comedian whose fortunes are in their lowest Despite an early education received, like his creator, a minor public school usually the privilege of the 'English middle - classes- “he is what might be termed person who denounces a society riddled with a class system,, for he is described as belonging to no class” (Ibid:, 34).

Yet, “he joins the under-privileged in his very war against the ruling and middle classes which represent a consistent motive for his revolt. His attitude is that of cynicism since he hasn't got two halfpennies for a penny. It's all credit.” (Ibid:, 19). However, as in

60 Look Back in Anger the apparent implication here is that the poorly conditions are not merely limited to an individual case Archie Rice in this respect; rather “they transcend these borders to characterize the financial status of a large majority of English people, ’ particularly the working classes, Phoebe, Archie s wife, claims that her husband's disintegration and failure in the show business are indicative of a more general problem Everything’s doing badly, still that's how it is people haven't got the money, have they” (Ibid., 40).

It is quite noticeable that Phoebe is representative of the social misery pervading the English proletariat. In spite of verging on the border of sixty years of age, she is still obliged to work in order to earn her living; hence major source of her incessant complaints

“I don't want to always have to work....It takes all the gilt off if you know you've got to go on and on till they carry you out in a box ....Do 'you think I don't want to enjoy, myself I am sick of being with down autes…” (Taylor, 1967: 53).

In addition to the implicit reference to the lack of social and economic security at large in the post war years especially in the mid- fifties in Britain, the play offers a vivid portrayal of the education system which encourages class distinctions by frustrating the poorer classes from obtaining their rightful necessary education This is clearly observed in Phoebe (Ibid:, 53). who, as a child of twelve, suffered from great poverty- she admits to her past incapability of affording to pay six pence a week which constituted the amount of her study fees and she was consequently driven to seek her living by leaving school and setting out to scrub a dining - hall floor for five hundred children.

These conditions, it is obviously implied, should not exist in a Welfare State which is, primarily, supposed to abolish thoroughly social strata and offer equal opportunities for members of all classes in the English society. However, inequality is still prevalent and ignorance is a quality confined to a great number of proletarian people. Therefore, the Rice may be regarded as representatives of the plight of a community, since, as Bryan Magee asserts, most British people:

61 allow themselves to be fobbed off with an education system that fails to educate most people… they are encouraged to ignore the plight of large minorities, such as the old, who live in great poverty And they accept a tax system that perpetuates ,the economic basis of the class – structure (Magee; qtd. in Carter, 1962: 188).

It may be significant to this respect to focus attention on the fact that, like Jimmy

Porter of Look Back in Anger, Osborne's Archie is at once an individual a symbol as well as a representative of the British working class. Archie symbolizes the collapse of the British Empire by his palpable disintegration as a music hall artist. He undergoes special problems which, in his opinion, the rest of humanity is not likely to share. Thereupon, he claims:

“…We’re dead beat and down and outs Why, we have problems that nobody's ever heard of we're characters out of something that nobody believes in… we're so remote from ,the rest of ordinary every day, human experience.”

(Osborne, 1974: 54).

However, the source of all the social problems realized in the everyday life of the Rice family such as inequality between English people descending from various social classes, the lack of education which is the identifying mark of a huge number of the British proletariat, greatly resides in the incompetence of the political system governing the country which preserves class structure. The cause of the social misery which is one facet of Archie’s rebellion has it’s deeply- rooted unrations in a political one. Thereupon, Archie together with the rest of the family levels his greatest in vocative against the practice of English politicians in general and Labour constituents of the Welfare State who have largely disappointed him in every possible respect in an almost identical manner to his predecessor Jimmy Porter (Osborne, 1974:74).

To this effect, even Archie's regressive father, Billy Rice, condemns the Government and calls it a degraded bunch of bleeders who manifest a degraded in ability to provide security for themselves, let alone (Ibid:, 21) seeking the welfare of the needful and oppressed, this idea is also clearly expressed in Archie's ironical words directed towards his wife Phoebe: “This is a welfare state, my darling heart. Nobody wants, and nobody goes -

62 without, all are provided for.” (Ibid:, 53). However, the hero's speech above is an echo of Jean's in a previous scene, making the sane indirect satirical remark about the status quoted “They’re all looking after us. We're all right, all of us ....God save the Queen,” (Ibid:, 31). There are poignant similarities between the rebel hero of The Entertainer Archie Rice, and Jimmy Porter of Look Back in Anger. This is the case as far as the motives for rebellion and the satirized targets are concerned.

As formerly discussed, it has been made clear that the primary causes for revolt in both charterers are social and economic financial insecurity and great poverty, their turn, these derive from essentially political factors namely incompetent politicians and the backward policy actualized by the two chief parties in Britain, Labour and Conservative. (Ibid:,32). These reasons account for Jimmy's and Archie's particular disappointment with the ultimate results of the Labour rule in the Welfare State which brought about the final collapse in the hopes of the majority of British people, especially the working -classes to which both ostentatiously belong. (Ibid:, 34).

Moreover, an additional cause for rebellion in common in Osborne's rebels above is political, namely Britain's role in the Suez War in 1956. “It may be significant to note that this particular factor is briefly, rather incidentally, discussed in Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer, however, it almost represents the focus of Archie's rebellion and his family's profound dissatisfaction.” (McCarthy, 1958: 75). Archie is not solely politically involved in the Suez crisis like Jimmy Porter, but is personally concerned with it. In fact, this self- shame cause undoubtedly exerts a great impact on the psychology of the entire Rice family, with the exception of Billy (Spender, 1958: 75).

Significantly, The Entertainer was perhaps written in the aftermath of the Suez War. Prom the political point of view, Britain was enormously unstable: there are continuous political demonstrations, in irregular War against the Government and the Prime Minister, Peat disturbance in colonial Cyprus as well as immeasurable confusion caused by the

Hungarian Revolution in 1956, TV play surely depicts the authors unreserved and genuine sympathy with the under - privileged people who pay with, death or bereavement for the blundering policies of their democratically elected overlords (Hayman, 1976: 26).

63 Archie Rice and the other members of the family level their heavy condemnation against England participation in the war of Suez, due to their conception of it as essentially “an act of defiance of all human values, aid by whose tragic consequences they have all been infected Jean Rice breaks her engagement with Graham Dodd as a result of her participation with political rallies against the Government's policy in Suez” (Osborne, 1974: 27), because, owing to her profound radical sympathies, she interprets it, as an act of imperialism against liberators.

As far as Archie is concerned, he shares his daughter's viewpoint regarding the Suez issue and, furthermore, expresses his regret for Mick's, his elder son’s, agreeing to take part in it. Thus, when Phoebe comments on Jean's unsympathetic feelings towards her father, “I don’t think she likes Mick,” Archie resorts without reluctance there’s no reason why she should.” (Ibid:, 58). Again in a later scene Joan asks her father if he has heard news about ’ Mick he cynically states “Who, old Mick look after himself expect, he s screwing himself I hope he is anyway.” (Ibid:, 39). However, the Suez crisis is disapprovingly compared with his younger brother's, Frank's, stance regarding the issue. Prank is a conscientious objector who, owing to his deep. radical principles, and in spite of a physical weakness represented by a weak chest, is determined to oppose the war and not serve in the army, for which cause he was ultimately imprisoned for six months, rather than adopt Mick’s attitude (Osborne, 1974: 40). To this effect, Jean admiringly relates how, unlike Mick.

When they called Prank, he refused, and he went to jail for it , for six months Young Prank full of doubts about himself, and everybody, with an old in his head half the year, and a weak chest. . But he went and said no, and, what's more, he went to. Jail for it I think that’s something. You don't, have to measure up young Mick against Prank …

(Osborne, 1974: 30).

As a result of Prank’s opposing attitude, his opportunity for decent life has been drastically ruined as he is now reduced to a stoke boiler in a hospital, despite his physical disabilities.

64 However, the point must be made that in spite of Archie's obvious ideological objection to Mick's con -cession to serve in Egypt, he is emotionally pained by son's eventual capture and death in the war, Phoebe states explicitly Archie worries about him. He doesn't say so, but I know he does" (Ibid:, 30). It is somewhat evident that the rebel hero of the play sees that, ultimately, the inefficient ‘men of Suez’ or the Establishment as represented by England's leading politicians are to be deemed responsible for the indifference to the lives of powerless working - class victims. That the Rice’s case is not an individual one is clearly expressed in Ronald Hay-man's words (Ibid:, 134), noting how after hearing the news of his son's death,

Archie Rice was weeping for all the powerless victims of the, irresponsible and incompetent politicians. ....The father- figures have all let us down the waving hand from the golden coach has its fingers parted in a sign of derision (Ibid:, 134).

Among the forces of derision and the stimulants the hero's revolt in is monarchy. “This hate of England's monarchic system extends to include the royal personages themselves, as clearly manifest, in the main character's satirical remark about the Duchess of Porth, who is mainly criticized for not being natural and for whose sake he taunts his wife Phoebe for being on her.” (Ibid:, 63). Significantly enough, the play makes clear point that the source of the entirety of the social Problems pervading the Rice household in particular, and the English society in general undoubtedly originates from the fatuity and utter futility of a political "body dominated by monarchic rule, hence Jean's outrageous speech on behalf of her family and all the oppressed English citizens (Ibid:, 64).

“Why do people like us sit here, and Just lap it all up why do boys die or stoke boilers, why do we pick up these things, ... what's it all in aid of — is it really just for the sake of a gloved hand warring at you from a golden coach?” (Ibid:, 78).

However, it is noteworthy that “for Osborne the Queen as representing royalty is deemed as emerge symbol of the overall machine in which the Tories and the Labourers respectively operate.” (McCarthy, 1959: 160);

65 As in Look Back in Anger, political causes for rebellion are operated with more prominence. In the earlier play, the hero criticizes English politics only once; and this conies as a by-product of Jimmy's primary purpose, namely his attack against the arrogant bourgeois people in the person of Nigel, his brother - in - law. In The Entertainer however, “politics becomes the main issue and an essentially important stimulus for Archie's rebellion” (Brustein, 1959: 99).

It is noticeable that Archie Rice directs his heaviest onslaughts on two major targets politicians and clergymen. His main object of ridicule is the Government in general and the Prime Minister in Particular, thereof, at hearing the news of Jeans participation in the rally against the Prime Minister! policy in Suez, he ironically enquires:

“Are you one of those who don't like the Prime Minister? Does he bring you out in spots? … I feel rather like that about that horrible dog downstairs there are three things that do that, three things Nuns, clergymen and dogs.” (Osborne, 1974: 39).

It may be of significance to point out at this stage that this antagonistic attitude towards the two major English political parties is adopted by even the most isolated person from the contemporary scene who would be the last to be expected to criticize the status quo or advocate change and betterment (Ibid:, 39). When Billy expresses his regret concerning one’s inability to differentiate between men and women at the present, Jean criticizes the government and the opposition, and Billy levels his forceful against the political situation of the country what that like the Government and the opposition. “Don’t talk to me about the government. That other lot Grubby lot of rogues wants looking up.” (Ibid:, 18).

Likewise, the main characters heaviest satirical “onslaught on Tory and Labour politicians are clearly palpable in his story” (Ibid:, 64) about a friend greatly disgusted with the four - letter word Tory to the limit that he was ready to employ it as a modifier to describe anything, provided it was really evil.

Moreover, the hero of The Entertainer obviously manifests a deep distrust of the Welfare State and Labour policy (Ibid:, 62) for seeking compromise in running the affairs

66 of the country. Social equality and fair chances of advancement on the part of brilliant people down in the social scale are aspirations which, may be regarded hardly accessible in a Welfare State still ridden with class distinctions. In effect, Prank's declaration to his sister Jean is characteristic:

“Don't kid yourself anyone's going to let you do any tiling, or try anything here, Jeannie because 'they are not you haven’t got a chance. Who are you, you’re nobody. You Virus nobody, you have no money, and you're young.” (Ibid:, 67).

Stressing the same point, Archie Rice, in a -more explicit and direct manner than Jimmy Porter, states ironically the hopeless position of the poor in a Welfare State Predominated by drab equality, “since the National Health won't bring you wealth. Those wigs and blooming are bought by you and me.” (Ibid:, 32). However, the fact remains that, as already stated in the previous chapter, “Osborne is undoubtedly a defender of the proletariat cause” (McCarthy, 1959: 160). Despite his complete distrust of the backward and compromising tinge of the Labour, his attitude is unequivocally stated in his own essay entitled “The Writer in His Age” wherein he strongly asserts his doctrine that the writer’s task at the present stage is to express the views of the masses in their own particular language.” (Taylor, 1975: 6).

A similar aspect of rebellion which is simultaneously an object of the hero's satire in both Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer is a poignant animosity towards the middle - classes, Osborne manifests a deep concern with class, which is reflected in his rebel hero's attitude.(Ibid:,6f). “There is an undoubted tone of ridicule of upper- class habits blindly imitated by the under – privileged proletarians in Archie Rice's sarcastic remark about his wife's preference of gin with Dubonnet, thus aping bourgeois manners.” (Osborne, 1974: 36). However, a vivid portrayal of the hero's Actual feelings regarding people descending from the bourgeoisie offered in Archie's hostile relationship with his unsympathetic audience in the theatre which represents, in main, the domain of the middle - classes Hence, he tells Jean: “You know when you're up there you think you all those people around you out there, but you don’t ,” (Osborne, 1974: 72). The play's ironic songs, of which the one in

67 -III, number it forms an example, pursue their special Prank's “Those playing fields of Eton. Have really got us beaten.” (Ibid:, 74).

It is to be noted that Bill, Archie’s barrister brother, Graham Dodd, and Jean's fiancé are meant to depict the corruption of bourgeois Capitalism Contrary to his wife's views, Archie Rice levels strong condemnation (Ibid:, 52) against his brother for being void of feeling, inconsiderate as well as incapable of showing the slightest sympathy or real understanding for the complete deprivation and numerous problems which seem to inflict the Rice household. (Ibid:, 53). Moreover, he manifests a very English characteristic which, in Jean's opinion, is contemptible, namely his condescending manner in treating his working -class relatives. Of his potentiality for feeling, Jean tells Phoebe: “I know exactly how uncle Bill patted your arm, just in the same way as herd wait on the men of Christ-Has when he was in the army. So democratic, so charming, so English.” (Ibid:, 51-2).

There upon, Archie wholly denounces his brother’s offer to manage a hotel in Canada and starts a new life. Despite Phoebe’s entreaties (Ibid:, 67) to leave the scene his failure, Arc Me announces his refutation of the idea of changing allegiances and ultimately joining the classes. It may be of some significance at this point to observe Jean's rebellion and tacit battle with her bourgeois Graham Jean is an obviously revolutionary person who has been giving art lessons to a bunch of Youth in London. It was an attempt on her part to

'establish herself as a useful and respectable individual, AS she frankly admits: “There wasn't any money in it was something I knew a little about,... but I thought this was something I really could do.” (Osborne, 1974: 28-9).

However, her complete rejection of Graham is due to the fact that, being held in fixed social attitudes as a typical bourgeois Capitalist he obviously considers her success in social work as a preconceived and planned threat to his world, as clearly evidenced by her own. “He doesn't want me to try something for myself. He doesn’t want me to threaten him or his world, he doesn't want me to succeed refused him.” (Ibid., 29).

It is quite noticeable that both Jean and Graham belong to two conflicting spheres. (Ibid:, 83). Whereas Graham denies and thoroughly abandons the concept of an individual's responsibility to society, Jean, on the other hand, utterly denounces this idea and,

68 furthermore, voices her view at it is not merely a wish on her part but her own duty to cling to her family and further social work by bettering their conditions.(Ibid:, 62). Her new role, it may be assumed, embodies a readiness to co-operate with the rundown proletariat, as represented by Archie's working -class family, in their waging a consistent war against the Privileged classes which are generally esteemed higher in social ladder.

An aspect of similarity between Osborne's rebels Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer is their attitude towards religion. It is to be noted that, in the final resort Archie's conception of the subject strikingly resembles that adopted by Jimmy Porter, Apparently, Archie Rice's harsh criticism is chiefly directed against those most involved in religion who display great remoteness from its essence. (Osborne, 1974: 38).

As pointed out earlier, Osborne's position regarding the issue is a constructive one, since the object of satire is those members of the Church, especially clergymen and nuns, who have considerably diverged from true religion (Ibid:,69). Century problems and reducing it to mere spiritless ceremonial Osborne's standpoint is a call for better and real, not false, religion. The irrelevance of religious dogma in contemporary environment as actualized by the Church is revealed in Jean's words to Graham Dodd in an attempt to shake him off his middle - class complacency and urge him to realize the plight of the oppressed (Carter, 1974: 157).

Have you ever got on a rail way train from Birmingham to West Hartlepool. And you get out.... you walk up to some woman standing on her doorstep… What message can you give to her? Do you say: Madame, do you know that Jesus died on the Cross for you? ... And then ..., she looks back at, you and she says: “oh, yes I heard all about that. (Osborne, 1974: 84).

Jean's criticism above is politico-religious. It is an indirect satire against the Government for not taking formidable steps to better the social conditions of the under - privileged classes as well as an immediate onslaught on the Church since it has evaded its central mission of taking care of the oppressed and be concerned with twentieth century problems instead of dealing with religion as a book of rules and a source of ceremonials (Ibid:, 13).

69 It may be significant to make the assumption that Osborne's, somewhat, sympathetic portrayal of the old music hall custodian Billy Rice, Archie's father, is generally speaking, frequently misconstrued as indicative of the. Author’s, and consequently, Archie Rice's, nostalgia for Edwardian and the past order are demonstrated. Nothing, however, could be more remote from the truth (Ibid:, 19).

However, the fact remains that a favourable description of the retired artist is provided. (Ibid:,13). On the whole, Billy Rice is presented as a dignified character worthy of respect and admiration, who is often accorded them (Trussler, 1969: 66). His son Archie admires him deeply; (Carter, 1974: 67). Jean Rice, moreover, declares in his behalf: “Pie's the only one of us who has arty dignity or respect for himself; he's the only one of us who has anything at all”. (Osborne, 1974: 82). Clearly, Billy is depicted as a “historical anachronism” (Banham,1969:82), his vehement patriotism all that is English almost categories him with those whose backward views and-right Wing tendencies border on the verge of racialism. Times his conception- of the Egyptians is that they are a cock - eyed "bunch” and a grubby lot 'of rogues;” (Osborne, 1974: 43). Whereas the Poles are merely a “bunch of greasy tom-cats! One Britisher could always take on half a dozen of that kind .or used to.” (Ibid., 37).

However, the nostalgia which Billy Rice reveals for Britain's imperialist past is characteristic, despite the fact that Osborne is far from sharing his views (Hayman, 1976: 28-9). In fact, this sense of longing (Carter, 1974: 161) on Billy's part for the stability of a forgotten order is represented in his frequent reminiscences of the glorious past of the Edwardian music-hall which figured as a successful form of popular entertainment and his memories of himself as a great artist belonging to this particular periods “Billy: What a place London was then for having a good time, Best place in the world for a laugh. People were always ready to laugh, to give you a welcome. Best audience in the world.” (Osborne, 1974: 75).

However, it is noticed that Archie's father's belonging to a different past era is counterbalanced by a conscious sense of exclusive alienation from his own surroundings

70 combined with a deep distrust of the present state of affairs.(Ibid:, 22). Hence, “Phoebe's admissions! He's just has been, I suppose” (Ibid:, 49).

It is significant to point out that throughout The Entertainer, “there is a strong link between personal and national identity” (Sudrann, 1958: 239). This idea is largely conveyed through “the gesture of the raised hat, as the yearning on the part of the old vaudevillian actor” (Trussler, 1969: 6). Billy Rice, “for the unforced gentility and unquestionable morality predominant, in his view, in the past, induces him to recognize how every man, used to take his hat off when he passed the Cenotaph” as well as for ladies and for the war deaf (Osborne, 1974: 79). Therefore, it is evident that, since “individual identity is greatly dependent on national power, the collapse of this national strength is, of necessity, meant to indicate. The loss of the human identity it provided.” (Sudrann, 1958: 240).

As formerly mentioned, the death of the music hall as evidenced in Archie's disintegration as a comedian and Billy's final downfall as a result of appearing in his son’s drab show in an attempt to revive this art form, are clear indication to the disappearance of England's former power as manifest in the ironic presentation of the nude who Operas on the stage wearing Britannia's helmet and accompanied by a bull dog and trident the very image of the country's national degradation, (Osborne, 1974: 61).

Nevertheless, there is an explicit reference to idea that “the prosperous past whose death is regretted by Billy Rice is only a myth” (Sudrann, 1958: 141f). It lives in Billy’s mind and helps to make existence possible him. Despite his genuine admiration and respect for his father, Archie Rice is palpably at variance with him ideologically:

“Billy: If you bought a pint of beer, you could get a plateful of Yorkshire pudding then, as much as you could. All for tuppence. Archie: … nobody ever gave away stuff like that, not even when you remember.” (Osborne, 1974: 65).

Moreover, Billy is portrayed throughout the play “as a figure of decay whose final death is inevitable since his absorption in the past creates a kind of dissociation between him and the present; by implication.” (Sudrann, 1958: 237). It also manifests a certain dread and deiform the future (Scott- kilvert, 1957: 29). It recognizes that the inheritance of

71 the lost identity from the past represents “the first step towards the new myth, the decisive creation of the new vital identity for the future” (Sudrann, 1958: 244). Significantly, one of the prime provocative: far Archie Rice's revolt, which seems to exert a considerable affection his psychology and can be traced back to a social origin,' is the prevalence of non - communication in the Rice household? (Osborne, 1974: 78). Here, as Look Back in Anger is greatly dominated by Jimmy's dramatic monologues and soliloquies to which he receives no response from his wife Alison, Osborne divides The Entertainer into family scenes and stage scenes which parallel each other in that Archie is denied any real contact by either audience (Ibid:, 79).

It is noticeable that the scarcity, almost absence of communication is not a feature characterizing the human relationship between Archie and those around him only rather, “it is an aspect dominating the relations of the entirety of the Rice family. This fact is vividly stated in Jean's protest nobody listens to anyone.” (Ibid:, 78). Monologue is the common media of expression among the household members, real interaction is non - existent as everyone tells the same story. “It aims the same objections, like a collection of tired phono- graph.” (McCarthy, 1959: 159). This element, however, is starkly apparent in the grandfather Billy who complains of finding nobody listening to him, owing to his old age: “I don't get much chance to talk to anyone. They think you're a bit soft. Just because you can remember things when they were a bit different.” (Osborne, 1974: 21-2). Moreover, Phoebe, Archie's wife, greatly suffers from a manifest sense of boredom which finds an outlet in her frequent visits to the pictures see films, which she apparently neither likes nor remembers (Ibid:, 25). This facet of her personality can be considered the ultimate outcome which is partially justified on the basis of her dwelling in a household where communication seems an impossible phenomenon.

A clear evidence is provided in the author's description of phoebe “as one who displays a trait in common with the rest the Rice family, namely an obvious unwillingness to interact with each other. Among the major factors for Archies rebellion is complete failure in his private life.” (Weales, 1958: 301). Like Jimmy Porter, Archie's wife displays a great inability to respond to his emotional needs owing to complete impatience on her part

72 to sit still and seek solutions for his numerous problems, despite the fact that she is generally more understanding of her husband's sufferings than Aliaon. (Ibid:, 109). On the whole, Archie shares Jimmy’s rather unsympathetic attitude towards his wife has represented by his harsh public attacks (Banham, 1969: 20) against her-Archie calls? Phoebe “a real road- mender's job” (Osborne, 1974: 24) in spite of her belonging, unlike Alison to a social stratum identical to Archie's, namely the working - class background.

Nevertheless, it is quite noticeable that Archie's rather unhealthy human relationship with the family may be regarded as constituting an extension and inevitable consequence of his articulate professional failure as a music-hall artist, greatly intensified by the presence of his father who is generally held as an established success in the field (Banham:1969: 28f). In fact, Phoebe alludes to this aspect in Archie's life, seeing it as “a series of constant disappointments and unfulfilled aspirations.” (McCarthy, 1959: 102). Apparently, he has to accept “the second - rate degree-with which he is deeply dissatisfied and which, furthermore, constitutes the essence of his rebellion.” (Styan, 1968: 296).

The point about the rapid decline of Archie's fortunes as a vaudeville artist is made clear, and the reason obviously resides in a completely uncomprehending and unsympathetic audience. This effect, Phoebe complains in Act II of Number VI of the play: “He's too good for them, that's his trouble. People don't appreciate you properly all they're out for is a cheap thrill.” (Osborne, 1974: 45). Throughout The Entertainer, it is observable that there is a rather strong emphasis on the idea that music-hall spectators are chiefly responsible for Archie's failure in his career, as accounted for by Billy Rice's collapse and consequent death when, later in the play, he appears on the stage in his son’s unsuccessful show (Ibid:, 43). However, the essential characteristics of the Osbornian rebel are isolation and loneliness, which spring from his feeling that he is the sole person in his own community who feels or seems aware of failure (Karrfalt: 1970: 78).

This is apparent in Archie Rice who pleads for some response from people surrounding him, whether on the stage or within the family sphere. It is noteworthy that the rebel characters in The Entertainer — Archie and his Left daughter Jean Rico — recognize the scarcity of, hence, in urgent need for, passion and valid human relationships in a cold

73 world. As Stephen' Spender presumes; the anger in the play comes out of the ashes which are society, and the diamond that is discovered by the truth of a personal relationship (Spender, 1958: 75-7).

Noticeably, Archie's rather placid rebellion is greatly enhanced by the absence of any sort of rapport with his audience, for when he hardly manifests any respect. Oh the whole, his attitude in this regard is one of insult, sneer and innuendo” (Banham, 1969: 32), “.the dirty joke is the sly smile as well as the sacrificing of all possible standards for the sake of creating some” (Ibid:, 35). response in them, hence his cynical manner which is generally misinterpreted by the majority of critics as re-presenting a lack of involvement or care for others, non-commitment as well as a sign of giving up and the death of any emotional capacities on his part. (Osborne, 1973: 83). In fact, the source of the confusion rests in the author's description, of his hero before his audience while doing his act as one who appears to be “dead behind the eyes” (Osborne, 1974: 59).

It is a mistaken approach, however, that adopts Osborne's words literally, as there is a considerably long distance between pretension and essence. Though, he may seem devoid of feeling, Archie nonetheless uses this irresponsible appearance as a cover for the raw nerve end of his feeling. (Ibid:, 34). Moreover, it is significant to point out sat this stage that despite Archie's own ironical statement to Jean announcing the death of his own as well as the audience's feeling: “I'm dead behind these eyes. It doesn't matter because I don't feel a thing, and neither do they, we’re just as dead as each other.” (Osborne, 1974: 72) and his cynical song “why should I care” (Ibid:, 24), that, furthermore, despite his advice to his daughter to deaden her responds Osborne strongly warns us against taking his hero at his own word (Osborne, 1957: 69). His declared incapability of responding and advocated fondness for draught Bass, (Ibid:, 76). “the granny face and the seedy vulgarity, all ide the fact that he still retains his care (Hayman, 1969:31) for the rest of people in his own community and deep concern for the future of England as evidenced by his complete denunciation of his brother's offer to leave for Canada and start a new life” (Ibid:, 84). Noticeably, Jean greatly mistakes her father’s professional mask for passivity thereof she

74 directs harsh accusations against Archie's self - complacency and escapism (Carter, 1974: 73).

As she ironically summarizes to Prank her view of Archie's character as “not only is your father generous, understanding and sympathetic— he doesn’t give a damn about anyone. He's two pen north of nothing!” (Osborne, 1974: 77). Yet, Osborne’s rebel of The Entertainer is essentially a man of feeling “an asp eat of his personality clearly portrayed in his genuine collapse at his knowledge of Mick's capture and eventual death in the Suez

War, At hearing the news, he starts singing a blues expressing his ultimate despair, Oh? Lords I don't care where they bury ray body cos my soul's going to live with God,” (Osborne, 1957: 73).

One may conclude that Archie shares his daughter's Left-Wing inclinations find revolutionary idea, but a point of departure regarding their philosophy of how feeling should be expressed emerges Whereas she strongly believes in active rebellion and the betterment of the social conditions, and his concept of revolt is that it should mainly be accompanied with good works end rots on so that, it cannot ultimately be transformed into a label (Osborne, 1974: 69).

Nevertheless, it may be of some significance to point out in this respect that The Entertainer is not a play of despair since both Archie and Jean are determined to continue their pursuit of a war against the Philistines and resume the struggle against social-and political disintegration.(Ibid:, 33). This idea is especially focused upon Archie's patriotic songs in the stage scenes of the play. Moreover, he still retains dreams of success, as depicted in his story about the negress bar singer in whose face hope and human strength culminate, despite her being poor and lonely and oppressed like nobody “you've ever known, Archie's non escapist, and hence positive, position is clearly outlined in his utter rejection of a free ticket offered by his Capitalist barrister brother Bill, a consequence of which he is finally exposed to imprisonment, owing to his evasion of paying income tax for twenty years.” (Osborne, 1957: 85).

On the whole, it is worthwhile stating that Archie’s rebellious attitude as represented by his persistence to stay in England is, to a great degree, emulated by Jean's attempt to be

75 truthful to herself, as evidenced in her utter rejection of her fiancé Graham and ultimate determination to better the conditions of her own community. (Ibid:, 84). Significantly, throughout The Entertainer, “Jean, who belongs to the third generation in the play, is generally conceived by the characters in the play as the sole hope.” (Tynan, 1961: 174). Her advice to the compromising Phoebe, “things have been tough.

But be sensible, you've got to keep on” (Osborne, 1974: 48) is indicative of her constant belief in the necessity of re-burning the fight. Likewise, she levels strong accusations against the whole Rice family in an attempt on her part to shake them out of their lethargy und stir them to some constructive action Posterior to Mick's death in Egypt, she cries out vehemently:

“Everybody's tired, everybody's standing about, loitering without any intent what so ever, waiting to be picked, up by whatever they, ' , may allow to happen to us next ....We can't all spend our time nailing our suitcases to the floor, and shin out of the window”. (Ibid., 75-6).

However, the dramatist's sympathies are, as formerly stated in the chapter on Look Back in Anger, wholly with the working - classes, in which he foresees the future of the country: “we’ve only ourselves” (Osborne, 1974: 85). Jean states: “conception of the objectives of drama is explicitly defined by him the complete absence of didacticism (Osborne, 1975: 65); the prevalence and precedence of feelings to thoughts and ideas, since the theatre “is a place where people 'spend much of their time responding nakedly or failing to the burden of trying to live and preparing to die.” (Ibid:, 70) deep concern for how ordinary people feel and live for the purpose of abolishing class barriers (Osborne, 1957: 9- 10) directing harsh attacks against the British way of feeling as represented and symbolized by the irresponsible middle -class audience in his plays , hence his fostering the " view ?; of the audience as a miniature England an inert habit ridden, Philistine . Assembly, sitting on their hands in the dark.” (Gersh, 1967: 139) who must be made to care and be aware of despair before realizing the possibility of creating a productive and just society. One may conclude, however, that in comparison with Look Back in Anger, The .entertainer is

76 apparently a more positive achievement, owing to the existence in it of all the factors which, in the dramatist's own view, are necessary to constitute what may

Be term good theatre.

3.3. Luther

Osborne’s declaration regarding the circumstances surrounding the writing of his historical play Luther is significant:

“It’s difficult to pinpoint just how Luther spirited. It's been brewing, a long period, I wanted to write a play about religious experience and this happened to be the vehicle for it. In fact the historical character is almost incidental.” (Osborne, 1961: 216).

It is noteworthy that, despite the fact that the dramatist chooses a character from history for the rebel hero of the play Martin Luther manifests away points of similarity with the author precedent - contemporary rebels, Jimmy Porter and Archie Rice in particular (Osborne, 1961: 216). In the main, Luther constitutes an analysis of the question of religious conscience and the nature of faith as embodied in the sixteenth-century German dissenter and Church reformer Martin Luther (Ibid:, 215). “It, furthermore, demonstrates a progression and a point of departure in the dramatist's career as far as the choice of subjects is concerned.” (Kitchin, 1966: 188). He is no longer interested in rebellions, in local or even national subjects of protest as in Look Back in Anger and the Entertainer: Reactively Osborne moves to deal with “the historical roots of protest.” (Ibid:, 1966: 188). However, “Luther is not strictly a chronicle play”, (Esslin, 1966: 69). since it casts as much light on the present problems of the contemporary Osborne rebel (Marowitz, 1962: 175).

“It attempts to be an exercise in the dialectics and philosophy of reformation theology initiated by the German monk.” (Trussler, 1966: 97). Though, the scene is no longer that of post - war England predominant in Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer the values underlying the three plays are almost identical of these dramas deals with the case of a main rebel character who is at great variance with the world into which he is bond, and who protests against its authoritative forces or the Establishment of his own

77 country or time although the deep - rooted causes for revolt in every individual situation may be referred to superficially different motives (Ibid:, 97). It may be of some relevance to state that this stage Luther's debt to a psycho- analyst study on the German reformer by a psycho- analyst of Scandinavian origin, Erik H. Erikson, entitled Young Man Luther (Rupp, 1966: 28-42).

Osborne's detailed debt to that source includes Gordon' Rupp claims “the themes of the play, all its main points, almost are the key quotations.” (Osborne, 1965: 30). This factor accounts the obviously deep focus on the part of the playwright on the psychological elements in Luther's development as evolutionary throughout. (Ibid:, 30) The first Act of the play opens with Martin Luther's reception as a monk into the Augustinian Order of Bruit in 1506, according to it, “he is bound to submit to the yoke of obedience, make himself entirely committed, to the Laws of God and the Order as well as discard all earthly pleasures.” (Osborne, 1974: 13). However, Martin's acute sense of loneliness, his feeling of isolation as well as the inner struggle against the physical demands of the flesh are aspects of his own personality that are given due stress, as explicitly stated in his protestation: “I am alone. I am alone, and against myself.” (Ibid:, 20).

Moreover, like the typical Osbornian rebel his distinction, his superior intelligence with regard to other monks, in sum, his own difference from the rest of the community and his own idealism are matters largely acknowledged by various characters in the play. Cajetan, the papal legate in Germany .and later one of “Martins great opponents, recognizes how the hero can only see his life in those of other people.” Moreover, the fact concerning his deep intellectuality and numerous talents for scholarship and “learning languages is clearly confined by friends and enemies alike.” (Osborne, 1966: 16). Hens, Martin’s working class father, admits on his son's behalf “Martin scholar a Master of Arts whereas half these monks nothing but wash dishes and begin the streets.” (Ibid:, 16).

However, it is to be observed that the dominant opinion held by the majority of critics maintain that “Osborne fails to balance the idea of Martin as individual with, that of Martin as part of his own society.” (Carter, 1969: 18). Furthermore, heavy accusations are constantly directed against the author for “laying heavy emphasis on the principal

78 character's physical obsessions and consistent self-condemnation with what he regards to be his own sinfulness, what simultaneously completely ignoring the social, political as well as the historical contexts of the play which are reduced to mere incidentals.” (Taylor, 1974: 55). However, these attacks may be refuted primarily on the grounds that in Luther, Osborne focuses on the personal and psychological influences forcing the hero to rebellion on the one hand, and on the social, political and religious factor is on the other, where Latin resembles the Osbornian rebels Archie Rice and Jimmy Porter (Ibid:, 55).

Early in Act I, Latin’s first personal symptoms, of rebellion against authority are revealed. These are clearly reflected in his deep internal pressure and conflicts of conscience which led to a deep sense of guilt and sinfulness, for which confession and constant humiliation seem inadequate (Hayman, 1976: 44). Moreover, “they are apparent in his growing isolation-which is the ultimate result of his own idealism and feeling of wickedness.” (Kitchin, 1966: 185). It is due to the increasing gap between the rituals of the Church as practiced by his fellow monks in the cloister he is spiritual aspirations, as obviously expressed in the self-deflating outcry so “I am a worm and no man, a byword and a laughing stock Curse out the worminess in, stamp on me...If my flesh would leak and dissolve, and if 1 could live as lone I could be indestructible.” (Osborne, 1974: 21).

In fact, Martin's own battle against the inner self can be regarded as a manifestation of his idealism and seeking a standard of perfection; Hence, his continuous personal accusations against what he deems his own is inadequacy before God (Osborne, 1974: 54). To relieve his conscience from this acute sense of guilt, he commits himself to a strict observation of the rules of the Order and the Holy Scripture which, .unlike his brothers in the convent, he regards “as direct orders to be immediately obeyed and practiced.” (Banham, 1969: 52). To this effect, Brother we complains to Luther:

“the whole convent knows you're always making up sins you've never committee! ... Hu sensible confessor will have anything to do with you” (Osborne, 1974: 26). Moreover, this aspect of Martin's religious experience is frequently criticized by John Staupitz, (Ibid:, 53). The Vicar General of the Augustinian Order, who taunts him chinbone fly for his

79 exaggerated mortifications represented by persistent attempts his part to kill all instincts through prayers, watching and reading.

Moreover, Martin Luther's increasing sense of spiritual tension and struggle as well as his inward region against the physical temptations of the external and of the flesh manifest to a considerable extent in his predominant physical disabilities particularly the sweating and the constipated bowels- which may be considered as a direct expression of his search for spiritual redemption (Ibid:, 24). This outstanding feature of Martin's character is greatly emphasized throughout the play. Thus, at the knowledge of the hero's constipation and deep physical pains, Stupid comments constipated. There's always something the matter with you, Brother Martin (Ibid:, 25). If it’s not the gripes, insomnia, or faith and works, It’s boils or indigestion or some kind of belly-ache you’ve got.’’ (Osborne, 1974: 24). Apparently, even at the play’s terminating scene, when he seems to have achieved great comfort and settlement and entirely denounced spiritual doubts, there is a reference to his physical vulnerability as marked by his ears,” (Rupp, 1962: 34).

It is of certain significance to point out, in this respect, that the incessant obsession on Luther's part with his physical disabilities is one of the determining psychological factors which incite him to challenge all institutional forces, including his own father, the Church, the Pope and the great political powers of the Christian world in sixteenth-century Europe (Ibid:, 23). The frequent reference to Luther’s epilepsy, constipate, indigestion and excessive Perspiration are, in fact, a symbolic expression of his Offering from an identity crisis and a clear indication of the hero's mental agony. It is to be noted that physical pain are apparently predominant in those situations of the play where the hero's spiritual battle is at its chest. Thus, “Martin's epileptic fit during his first class at the Brenite Cloister is characteristic, as his strife for perfection, his profound mental agony resulting from his complete conviction of being sinful” (Rupp, 1962: 32). and, therefore, . “his inability to reach God is expressed in contortion of the mind and the body.” (Banham, 1969: 52). Hence, the rather symbolic relationship throughout Luther “between constipation and re- ligious doubt on the one hand, and evacuation of the bowels (or physical purgation) and spiritual purification on the other.” (Trussler, 1969: 95).

80 Moreover, Martin's bodily purgation is an obvious indication by the author to endow his rebel hero with the appearance of an ordinary human being. “To deny him any possible heroic stature, since his coarseness as indicated by his profuse perspiration is among the prominent factors which later plays a part in appealing to the German peasantry, who are consequently urged to take action and to affect a major revolt.” (Hunt, 1962: 157). One may assume that, on the whole, physical weakness is a trait shared by the majority, if not the entirety of Osborne's rebel heroes.

In fact, one of the prime psychological causes for martin's rebellion is the nature of the conflicting relationship with the father, Hans Luther. In Luther, as in the case of Jimmy Porter and Archie Rice, “there is a sort of balance between the personal and psychological forces on the one hand, and the external factors — be they social, political? Religious on the other,” (Carter, 1974: 38) which exerts a certain influence on their formation as rebel characters. In the case of Luther, it is noteworthy that “the non - existence of communication predominating the father son relationship is a manifestation of a persistent identity crisis, which partially accounts for his consequent revolution against the Church.” (Hayman, 1976: 43).

Martin's rebellious nature against social conventions is depicted early in the play. In Act I Scene I, he strongly defies paternal authority by entering the cloister to be a monk, despite his father's protestations that the monastery is a place of escape for a man of Luther's capabilities. However, in the confrontation between them consequent to Martin's first Mass ordeal, two primary factors underlay the father's strong disapproval of his son's monkey. First is Hans’s great estimation of Martin's talents. As he reprimands Luther: “You could have been better than I am a lawyer. You could have been a burgomaster, you could have been a magistrate you could have been a chancellor, you could have been anything.” (Osborne, 1974: 15).

The second reason stems from, the father's own convictions about religious commit in this connection, contrary to Martin's aspirations attain an absolute standard of spiritual purgation by of exercising excessive physical mortifications, father is obviously portrayed as an anti-clerical man in favour of worldly materialism. Who, furthermore, considers

81 monastic am on Martin's part as an act betraying an evasion of social life and human responsibility, (Kitchin, 1966: 185). Hence his words:

“ …you can't ever get away from your body because that's what you live in, and it's all you've got to die in, and you can't get away from the body of your father and your mother! We’re bodies, Martin, and so are . .. You, and We're bound together for always.” (Osborne, 1974: 41).

Nevertheless, “Martin voices his greet opposition to all sorts of tyrannical power, his complete impatience with, and disregard for, the conventions of his age as well as his readiness to challenge authoritative powers, be they religious, political or paternal.” (Geriel, 1967: 139ff ). This is indicated in his vehement protest against his father's claim to be rightfully justified by Martin's own accomplishments and existence:

“Churches, kings, and fathers -why do they seek so much, and why do they all of them get so much more than they deserve,? ... All you want is me to justify you, ! Well, can't, and, what's more, I won't, …. I've done for you all I'll ever do, and that's live and wait to die.” (Osborne, 1974: 41-2).

Nevertheless, at the termination of the father-son, scene “there is a significant revelation of the deep rooted psychological cause for Martin's ambivalent attitude towards authority and for his determination to join the monastic world, namely his frustrated love for his own parents.” (Carter, 1974: 91). As a child, however, Martin was greatly disappointed with the harsh treatment he used to receive from his father. Who beat him frequently, despite the fact that, as Martin states, “I loved you the best. It was always you I wanted. I wanted you love more than anyone's.” (Osborne, 1974: 43). However, his disappointment was considerably greater on the maternal side, as his mother beat [him] once for stealing a nut ... “she beat [him] until the blood came,.,. !He) [had corns on Chis] backside already, a consequence of which treatment she left "a gap-which no one else could have filled,” (Ibid:, 43). Undoubtedly, these two past incidents seem to have left indelible marks on Martin's personality as a young boy.

One may conclude this stage that Martin's ultimate rejection of the Church stems partly from a deep rooted psychological source, namely a persistent identity crisis which is

82 largely due to his lost innocence as a child. This aspect is, in its turn, traced back to the frustrated and unhealthy relationship between the son and his own parents, which, as Ronald Hayman asserts, could lead to a projection of the same combination of emotions towards God: “a sense of desperate need and a sense of being singled out for special victimization whether the punishment conies, from God or from the Devil is immaterial. Hence, Luther's heaping blame on both parents for being the direct factor of his own mockery, “which can be regarded as an act of defiance and a preliminary step to his consequent revolt and utter dismissal of all aspects of existing tyrannical authority.” (Osborne, 1974: 44).

Among the most significant psychological clues... which is deeply inter-related, with the one already discussed the relationship between an oppressed son and dominating parents is what may be termed the child motif, Apparently, one of the prominent factors in Martin's development is the search for a lost identity, for lost childhood, which is quite recurrent in the child motif (Osborne, 1974: 4). This yearning is a natural attitude since, more than being part of Luther's psychological pattern, the theme, in Gordon Rupp’s view achieves something human and universal, that nostalgia for a vanished innocence which has haunted all men from the time of Adam until now (Rupp, 1965-1966: 33).

It may be of some significance to state in this, that, throughout Luther the idea of the search for childhood usually appears at those crucial moments of play where the rebel hero undergoes intense religious stress. Prior to seeing his father, Hans, in the convent, Martin appears soliloquizing:

“I lost the body of a child, a child’s body, the eyes of a child, and at the first sound of ray own childish voice. I lost the body of a child; and I was afraid, and I went back to find it. But I'm still afraid. I'm afraid, and there's an end of it!” (Osborne, 1974: 24).

Likewise, “after taking his first Mass and before his sermon wherein he fiercely sails the practices of the Church as regards the system of indulgences and the selling of holy relics, a child is seen on stage.” (Ibid:, 61). Moreover, the child motif recurs during Martin's battle with the Pope, as he makes a. reference to himself in a letter he sends to this

83 religious authority, as being like a child, and, significantly enough, calls the Pope his “most holy father.” (Ibid:, 75).

Furthermore, in a sermon delivered at the Castle Church in Wittenberg in 1520 after his communication, (Ibid:, 80), he prays to God to help him against the great powers of the world for he is no more than a stillborn child Finally, the idea of Luther's deep nostalgia for childhood, with its combination of innocence and frustrated affection for his father appears in the play's final scene where Luther is seen dandling his own be by on his lap and saying : “You should have seen me at Worms, I was almost like you that day, as if I'd learned to play again, to play? To play out in the world like a naked child” (Ibid:, 102). Apparently, the implication he is that Luther's sole moment of freedom and repose was at them. “Diet of Worms when he announced his defiance of the world's authorities” (Rupp, 1965-1966: 41). At that moment his inhibitions and fears deserted him completely and he felt like a naked child an image symbolizing simple faith and freedom (Ibid:, 32).

It is rather observable that Martin's religious experience in the. Monastery tends to increase his torment of mind and conscience during the first months,(rupp,32). as clearly confirmed in the symbolic image of a man whose torso is draped across the cutting edge of a huge knife pointing towards the sky (Osborne, 1974: 24). His drastically distinguish him from his fellow monks in the Eremite Cloister, are there upon given due emphasis (Carter, 1974: 83).

As the consolation of the monastic life utterly fails to relieve his troubled conscience from the pervading sense of sinfulness, Martin commences protesting forcefully against being singled out for special victimization by God (Osborne, 1974: 30) as well as expresses his defiance to the religious rituals, since he thinks exclusively in terms of God’s wrath (Ibid:, 27). Hence, his nihilistic protest “all I can feel is God's hatreds. He’s like a glutton, the way he gorges me ... all I see of Christ is a flame and raging on a rainbow .I can’t raise my eyes to look at Him.” (Ibid:, 28). Undoubtedly, Luther’s relationship with God is uncharacterized great; resentment, owing to his ungreediness to compromise with essential matters of belief. “This stance towards religion however derives mainly from his profound conviction that reliance on the belief in the forgiveness of sins does not prove the

84 way to Heaven” (Banham, 1969: 53). In answer to Brother Wieland’s advice to follow the Creed and believe in God's mercy, Martin vents forceful protests:

And you tell me this ! What have I gained from coming into this sacred Order ? Aren't I still the same ? I'm still envious, I'm , still impatient, I'm still passionate ? ... All you teach me in this sacred place in 'how to doubt…. that's really all you’ve taught me, and all the" while 'I'm living in the Devil’s – WORN bag. ( Osborne, 1974: 27-8).

However, as an ultimate result of the internal evolution of Martin's intense spiritual struggle and his Beefing to satisfy his own conscience instead of accepting compromise through entire submission to the rules of the Order, he imitates his fierce battles with the creed of the established Church as he develops his personal thesis that it is essentially faith in God, and not for givens of sins or doing penance, (Ibid:, 55) that saves the individual. To this effect, he declares:

“No man is just because he does just works. The works are just. If the man is just. If a man doesn't believe in Christ, not only are his sins mortal, but his good works…. The truth is that the just shall live by faith alone” (Ibid:, 63).

In fact, one of the prime causes for Martin's public rebellion against the Church springs chiefly from the controversy over the indulgences and work holiness which constitutes the entirety of Act II of the play. However, it must be made clear, in this respect, that Luther's cardinal concept of justification by faith is primarily, an ultimate outcome of his intense religious crisis in the monastery stemming, in the main, from his pervading sense of guilt and his inability to come to terms with the Church’s doctrine regarding the forgiveness of sins and good works as being the sole road to salvation (Osborne, 1974: 63). Moreover, his challenge to authority is merely heightened, not entirely caused by, the consecrated rottenness of the established Church represented by such abuses as the selling of indulgences and the exploitation of dubious relics, (Ibid:, 55).

A main target, and simultaneously an important factor, in Luther's rebellion is the hypocrisy of church officials, as clearly depicted in the portrayal of the ecclesiastical huckster and blackmailing indulgence vendor (as Tetzel), (Osborne, 1974: 47) excessive

85 concern for showy rituals and processions (Ibid:, 15). Instead of a preoccupation with the fundamentals of religion as well as the Church’s exploitation of people's fears from the horrors of damnation for unrepeated sins by publicly blackmailing them through the 'indulgences policy at the expense of the Scriptures, (Banham, 1969: 55). To this effect, Tetzel proclaims in the market place in Jitterbug.

“ the Pope, himself has sent me with indulgence for you ... Before God, I tell you I wouldn't save my privilege at this moment with that of St Peter in Heaven because I've already saved more souls with my indulgences, than he could ever have done with all his sermons” (Osborne, 1974: 48).

He goes on claiming to the Pope is empowered to forgive sins and provide the dead with salvation through letters of indulgences.(Ibid:, 48). Consequently, Luther directs vehement attacks against the established authority of the Church and the heavy abuses of its servants in a series of sermons delivered at the Castle Church, Wittenberg, wherein he announces an unreserved opposition to the policy of indulgences and selling dubious relics conducted by the Pope, for Martin's Creed is, as he tells his Vicar General Stupid (Ibid:, 49). “You can't strike bargains with God.... it is an evil sanction because only you could live your life, and only you can die your death It can't be taken ever for you.” (Ibid:, 58).

It may be of some relevance to refute at this stage , some of the views adopted by a few critics respecting the motives for Martin’s rebellion. Alan Carter, for example, presumes that among the weaknesses of Luther is the haziness on the part of the dramatist which characterizes the treatment of Martin’s “inner compulsion” (Osborne, 1947: 85). coupled with a special concentrations on the issue of indulgences to the extent that it is made the hero’s sole point of division with the Church and the ultimate cause of the Reformation and of his challenge to the ecclesiastical doctrine of the day. Moreover, according to him:

“The play offers no analysis of the causes of the reformation , no explanation of Luther’s magnetism , not even the picture of an age . It merely one man’s rebellion against world into which he was born, and his search for a personal understanding of life.” (Ibid:, 39).

86 Ronald Hayman, on the other hand, agrees with Carter on the suggestion that Martin’s defiance of the Establishment, as represented by papal authority, and the consequent rise of the Reformation seem to drive from the chief dispute over the system of indulgences (Hayman, 1976: 50). Moreover, like Carter, Hayman (Ibid:, 8). makes the assumption that in in Luther, Osborne presents Martin’s rebellion with a complete disregard for the reasons behind it , and even goes as far as maintaining that this is a characteristics common to all of Osborn’s plays (Ibid:, 9). Yet, Hayman slightly diverges from the view heralded by the former critic by considering that the play in question is about a rebel and is “only very perfunctorily concerned with indulgences and justification by faith, and scarcely concerned at all with other questions of dogma or of abuses in the Church.”(Ibid:, 8).

However, in addition to analysing the psychological reasons of Martin’s dissension with authority, “the play portrays the religious and political scene in sixteenth century Europe which plays a major role in accounting for the hero’s rebellion and Reformation movement.” (Rogers, 1968: 148). In fact, among the significant factors instigating Martin Luther to adopt a position of defiance and revolt resides the rottenness of the clergy. Indeed, one may assume with Martin Banham that Luther’s division with the Church is primarily due not to his dissenting nature as much as he is “forced to it by the inability of the Church to respond to his please for the reform not of itself but of its clergy.” (Hayman, 1976: 57).

It is to be pointed out that, throughout the play, references to the abuses and malpractices of the Church servants are somewhat numerous. In Act I Scene II, for instance, Martin’s brother monk at the Eremitc Clositer, Brother Weinand, makes a revelation of the truth that “ there are plenty of priests with dirty ears administering the Sacraments. “The avarice of Church officials is likewise criticized, as apparently shown in the father- son scene in the monastery, during which Hans reveals to martin that his mother’s gift was obtained by the prior of the convent.” (Osborne, 1974: 35).

This aspect is also indicated in the scene between Luther and Cajetan, Cardinal of San Sisto and General of the Dominican Order, wherein the latter directs his onslaughts on the ecclesiastical hypocrite John Tetzel, owing to his secret breaking of two priestly vows,

87 namely the vow of poverty – as he obtains more than twenty guilden a month and that of marriage, by dint of his fathering two children (Osborne, 1974: 70). Moreover, the demorality and utter obscenity of the clergy are harshly attacked by Luther himself. (Ibid:, 65).

However, the most direct criticism is aimed at the head of religious authority, the Pope, for the extensive, unlawful power allowed him , and the exploitation of this power for plundering the working – classes. This is explicitly stated in Martin’s own words commenting on tyrannical authority: “There have always been … complaints and grumbling in the taverns about the avarice of priests and attacks on the power of the keys. And this has been happening throughout Germany.” (Ibid:, 75-6). In fact, the decadence of the Church is represented in the figure of the Pope (Carter, 1974: 87).

This aspect is especially evident in Act II Scene V of the play, where he is described as richly dressed in hunting clothes, and while apparently pretending to be preoccupied with religious functions, he actually plays distractedly with a bird or shoots at a board with crossbow (Osborne, 1974: 75) in brief, “he is depicted as more worried about his own amusement and missing the good weather than performing his ecclesiastical duties” (Brown, 1972: 150).

It is noteworthy that during Martin’s progress as a protestant, which is an ultimate outcome of his defiance to religious authority, he vehemently satirizes political powers or the Establishment, as represented by Duke Fredrick, Emperor of Germany (Trussler, 1969: 105). The Duke together with the ecclesiastical authority Archbishop main, are criticized , in the main for collecting doubtful relics mostly paid for by the sale of indulgences (Osborne, 1974: 57). Significantly, this is Martin’s uncompromising attitude towards the abuses of the power, despite the fact that, as Staupitz asserts, the Emperor “paid all the expenses of martin’s promotion for him”. (Ibid:, 57).

However in the scene between Cajetan, the papal legate and Rome’s highest representative in Germany, and Martin Luther can be deemed “as symbolic of ascending rebellion and declining authority” (Kitchen, 1966: 187). Herein, he publicly announces his strong opposition and consistent defiance to religious authority embodied in the pope, as

88 indicated by his complete refusal to recent his own theses concerning his cardinal doctrine of justification by faith and the sale of indulgences to save dubious relics. (Osborne, 1974: 69, 71). Furthermore, he clearly identities his stance by disclaiming the authority of the Pope and upholding instead that, since he “rests his case entirely on Holy Scriptures” (Ibid:, 71), “he could only be contracted from scripture, thus preparing for his dissension from the established Church” (Rupp, 1962:149).

In fact, the decadence of the Roman Church is starkly witnessed in the scene above on the basis that , on Martin’s parasites to be instructed where he has warred, Cajetan, who is described in the stage direction to the scene as the “most distinguished theologian” (Osborne, 1974: 64) of the Dominican Order , is drastically short of any doctrine on which he could base his contradiction of Martin’s doctrine to convince him to retract his prepositions (Ibid:, 64). Thus, his attitude fluctuates between begging, menacing and finally, resorting to such stale statements as “only the Pope has the right of Declining in matters of Christian faith. He alone and no one else has the power to interpret the meaning of Scripture …. The Pope’s judgment cannot err.” (Osborne, 1974: 69). But to the theologian Luther, “whose particular view of papacy and the Roman Church is as similar as Jimmy Porter’s and Archie Rice’s unfavourable opinion of the Welfare state of post – war England, only a revolution can bring about the necessary changes and rectify the errors practiced by the Church” (Marowitz, 1962: 175). Hence his assertion to Cajetan:

A withered arm is better computed, an infected place is best scoured out , and so you pray for healthy tissue and something sturdy and clean that was crumbling and full of faith …. Someone always prefers what’s withered and infected . But it should be cauterized as honestly as on knows how (Osborne, 1974: 72).

As a result of Martin’s rejection to submit to the Pope’s will, he is ultimately excommunicated. (Sudrann, 244). Catholic Church is initiated, as marked by his burning the papal bull issued against him outside Elster Gate, Wittenberg, in 1520, (Osborne, 1974: 78). Accordingly, from these onwards, the hero’s fierce public attacks against the character of the Pope are greatly stressed. To the German dissenter, papacy is regarded as something evil; “papal decrials are the devil’s excretal” (Ibid:, 79), and immersed in filth and

89 corruption – characteristics denoted by the repulsive animal imagery connected with “the head of the Church the farmyard epithets and dreadful three letter words like pig , ass , dog, ape, sow and the like.” (Rupp, 1966: 38).

However, Luther’s incessant declaratory protest against the Church and papacy leads ultimately, to his public accusation and arrangement before the diet of Worms on April 18, 1521, (Ibid:, 15), then forward his consistent rejection of Europe’s leading political and religious power is intensively depicted , as he repeats his former refusal to recent his own books unless, as formerly stated, he is instructed with proofs commensurate with the Gospels. (Ibid:, 25). Moreover, his complete denunciation of papacy as evidenced by statements like: “We must fear God alone .” (Popkin, 1958: 30) and “I don’t believe in Popes or councils”, (Osborne, 1974: 85). in addition to his personal admission to have written books fiercely attacking certain, private, distinguished, and apparently highly established – individuals. “They are all defenders of Rome and enemies of my religion” (Ibid:, 24) mark the starting point of Martin’s Reformation movement, since he recognize the urgent need for a revolution to abolish corrupt establishments in the Christian world, regardless of his particular interests. Thereupon, he ascertains:

“I have never set out to be a saint and I have been defending my own life , but the teaching of Christ . So you see, … I am not free to retract, for if I did , the present situation would certainly go on just as before.” (Ibid:, 83).

It is considerable significance to analyse, at this stage, martin Luther’s own concept of, and attitude towards, the working- classes. One may assert that class awareness is a general feature of Osborne’s contemporary and historical plays, Class struggle as discussed in the two previous chapters can generally be regarded one of the main, in Jimmy Porter’s case one the most significant, factors.(Osborne,1974:82). Other common characteristics among the majority of Osborne’s rebel heroes in their dissension from a working- class background. In Luther, martin apparently retains an unreserved love for his miner father. (Ibid:, 35). Moreover, his deep concern for the exploited and the under – privileged is symbolically depicted in his nightmare in the Cloister Chapel of the Erimites, wherein he dreams of being on top of a group of people consequently, as he relates:

90 Suddenly, I panicked – although I was on the top of the pile – and I cried : what about those underneath ? Those at the very bottom , and those in between? We all got , up in an orderly way ,…. those at the bottom were not simply flattened by the weight, they were just their clothes (McCarthy, 1959: 102).

This is further demonstrated in Hans’s speech concerning “the necessity of constant struggle against Capitalists as the sole road to the survival of the working – class” (Styan, 1968: 296).

It is noteworthy to indicate that a prime reason for the German reformer’s war launched against the Church’s practice of the system of indulgences resides in the feeling on his part that his particularly poor citizens were frayed, as they were publicly robbed by the Church servants (Osborne, 1974: 58). Hence, his vehement satire of the Pope and his representation cleric John Tatzel, who is largely criticized by the hero, owing to his particular efficiency in being: “able to wrinkle coppers out of the pockets of the poor and desperate” (Ibid:, 47). Undoubtedly, his profound regard for the masses seems to account for the fact that unlike Erasmus who conveys his dissatisfaction with the status quo through Latin the language of theology and scholarship – Martin’s means of communication is “plain German (Ibid:, 60). “ rough German” (Ibid:, 62). a language comprehensible to all. This factor, in its turn, explains the rapid publicity Luther greatly entertains throughout his battle with the Establishment, a truth recognize even by his most bitter enemies (Ibid:, 70).

However, Martin’s relationship with the German peasantry is greatly complicated because of his actual siding with the forces of law and order during the Peasants’ Revolt (Hayman, 1976: 47). Apparently, his own challenge to the powers of Church and State is among the influences that work upon the radical peasants who see in him, apart from being a religious innovator and reformer, a social as well as political rebel who could lead them to the Liberty (Rupp, 1962: 15).

In fact, the Peasants’ Revolt in Luther is indicated by a handcart beside which lies the bloody corpse of a peasant, and a knight who obviously represents the peasants, point of view and reports the revolt which, presumably, seems to take place off – stage (Osborne, 1974: 86). This is a technical device perhaps intended by the author to obscure the actual

91 range of Luther’s participation in the suppression of the revolution. Nevertheless, Act III Scene II of the play represents the knight, once Luther’s follower, attacking Martin and expressing the suffering of the poor peasants, with the results of the revolt (Ibid:, 87). Martin betrayed his supporters and encouraged the authorities to use the sword in crushing the movement (Ibid:, 88). Therefore, the Knight directs his heaviest invective against Martin who, in his own words:

fizzed like a hot spark in a trail of gunpowder going off in us … anyway, it never worked out . [To corpse ] Did it , my friend ? … but who’d have ever thought … [that] he’d be there …. hollering for your blood, cutting you up in your thousands, and hanging you up to drip away into the fire for good (Osborne, 1974: 86-7).

Accordingly, the knight assails the German reformer for being a compromiser and turning against his own people by making allegiance with the Establishment and the forces power, as represented by the “big princes and archbishops, the cut rate nobility and rich lay about” who customarily squeeze every penny those poor peasants never had.” (Ibid:, 87).

However, certain justifications are provided for the hero’s conduct during the Peasants, Revolt. At the Knight’s accusation that martin could simultaneously have supported the rebels and achieved freedom and order in the country, (Ibid:, 89), the letter’s retort is that the revolt is a disorderly act with can only be conceived by the hero as a revolution aimed against God’s “Word”, that, since it is greatly chaotic, it can only be interpreted as stimulated by the devil’s own will (Ibid:, 91). This stance is primarily due to Martin’s own conception that “Christens are called to suffer, not fight,” which is further demonstrated in his homily on Abraham and Isaac, at the end of which he makes the assertion: “ In the teeth of death we live . If He butchers us, He makes live” (Ibid:, 92).

It is significant to state, in this respect, that Martin does lay the responsibility of crushing peasants’ rebellion on himself because of their fierce defiance of authority, the result of which he greatly feared that the country would be turned into waste and the objects of the Reformation might completely berried (Ibid:, 91). The peasants, as Gordon Rupp demonstrate,

92 “had perpetrated some horrible massacres, had burned and pillaged churches, monasteries, castles and with no planned commissariat they moved like a plague of locusts, pillaging and devouring what they seize” (Rupp, 1962: 150).

As a consequence, Luther wrote his leaflet urging the State to use the force in abolishing the revolt, yet savageness employed in the execution of the operation was due to the “young tough German Princes “who” enjoyed a blood bath” (Rupp, 1962: 150). Nevertheless, in a later scene with Staupitz, (Osborne, 1974: 98f) wherein Martin is the greatly attacked by the now ex-vicar General of the Augustinian Order for being the chief cause of the slaughtering of the poor German peasantry, he expresses his own creed that since man is not all, his will is accordingly subject to one of the two external forces:

God or Satan .One may assume, in his own conviction, Martin can be regarded as God’s device to crush the revolution determined by the devil against him. This attitude, however, is due to the hero’s contradictory and compromising belief that a rebellion against authority is primarily directed towards God for, in his view all powers are ordained of him (Osborne, 1947: 99).

However, one may conclude that, subsequent to Luther’s long period scepticism and intense doubt, which are to be found in Osborne’s rebel heroes Jimmy porter and Archie Rice (Marowitz, 1962: 175), and after his great refusal, he can be deemed to have attained perfection and the affirmation of the self- (Brown & Harris (eds.), 1968:156). In the final scene, he himself admits to Staupitz to have overcome despair by three means: faith in God, active rebellion and family life (Osborne, 1974: 95). Denouncing the monastic life with its mystical negations and rejecting the place wherein escapist people, in fact, saints who have given up life (Taylor, 1975: 136) live, Martin comes to the discovery that God’s “put [thing] common people in their names … is the field of the vocation to perfection” (Rupp, 1962: 151) that, furthermore, this earthly world is the ultimate path to Heaven. The play may therefore be described (like both Osborne’s plays discussed in the two precedent chapters) as one pertaining hope since Martin maintains a rather personal relationship with God, equally paralleled with utter rejection of the traditions of life (Carter, 1974: 81) as demonstrated by his illumination in the terminating scene that “a human being is a helpless

93 little animal, but he’s not created by his father, but by God” (Osborne, 1974: 102). Significantly, like Jimmy Porter and Archie Rice, Martin Luther is a non-conformist, a rebel against the authority of the Establishment and institutional dogmas.

However, it is noteworthy to assert, in this respect, that “John Osborne’s rebel hero” howls less at the powers that be than from a desire to be the power himself.” (Rogoff, 1966: 31). Truly enough, he is stimulated to protest by various personal, social, political and religious factors, yet his defiance of the status quo entails no preconceived alternatives or embodies a commitment to certain defined objects. This idea is especially referred to in various positions in Luther. In Act II Scene II, Staupitz makes the point that Martin’s great inability to submit to authority is primarily due to his determination to substitute power with himself. Likewise, Cajetan, in a later scene, directs heavy accusations against the German reformer, who apparently lacks any preconceptions regarding his own position after his complete demolition of papal authority (Ibid:, 72). Hence his words to Martin are as following:

You’re not a good old revolutionary, my son, you’re just a common rebel, a very different animal …. you don’t want to break rules, you want to make them. You’d be a master breaker and maker and no one would be able to stand up to you, you’d hope, or even sufficiently repair the damage you did (Osborne, 1974: 73).

Nevertheless, Martin is distinguished from the earlier rebels by his outstanding activity. For him, it is “a hard role to be passive” (Ibid:, 56) a point which finds assertion in Staupitz’s words in his behalf : “You’ll never be a spectator. You’ll always take part.” (Ibid:, 56). Unlike Jimmy Porter and Archie Rice who rant and rage in the void, Martin’s achievement is marked by his personal discovery that individual faith paves the way to salvation, as manifest in his doctrine as “no man can die for another, or believe for another or answer for another.” Karrfalt, 1970: 80).

Osborne, moreover, it is perhaps a great paradox that this figure from the past makes considerable achievements in medieval conformist Europe, whereas Osborne’s contemporary rebels can hardly effect an alteration in a world filled to the core with all

94 sorts of dissension and diverse ideologies. Remarkably, Martin’s influence upon the Christian world is undeniable, as admirably recognized by the ex-vicar General of the Augustinian Order: [He’s] “taken Christ away from the low mumblings and soft voices and jeweled gowns and tiaras and put him back where belongs to in each man’s soul.” (Ibid:, 100).

95 CONCLUSION

The main aim of this study is an inquiry into the rebel hero reflected in three plays by John Osborne. Man of the modern age is desperate, frustrated, alienated and, thus, futile. It is through the plays of John Osborne, one can realize how the modern man is surrounded by many factors that work keenly to make him fail as a human being. It is the age of technology where man, after he has created the machine, is becoming guided by its values, convictions, traditions and all that distinguishes pure humanity from the passage of time once by the evils of industrialization, at other times by the evils of social institutes and at other times by wars and their consequences. Thus, man of the modern age has become an incarnation of failure. The worldwide evils combined with social evils created futile societies in which individual turned neurotic. This is shown clearly through the plays of John Osborne and in particular, Look Back in Anger is the epitome of it.

Look Back in Anger is criticized by some critics as lacking concentration on one particular aspect while the protagonist speaks about many topics. But if Osborne’s purpose was to create a preacher out of Jimmy porter, the play would not have achieved all the success with mainly springs from the fact that the hero himself, like the majority of his citizens, knows that there are things going wrong in particular aspect of the society. Nevertheless, there is still no one to take a step towards changing what is wrong. People are, somehow, crippled at acting though all know that there is an urgent must of doing something to correct what is wrong and to bring back the brilliant glory of the past. So , if Look Back in Anger was merely a direct means of advising, guiding and orienting, it would have become something added to the list of should and should nots to be put on shelf like the ‘the book of rules’ referred to by Jimmy porter. It would have been neglected like the feelings and thoughts of many simple people, which are realized but never put into practice.

Yet, the fact that Osborne’s plays mirrored what lies deep in the hearts of every individual and the ordinary people. They made it expose to them what they run from while they hide in their unconscious. Jimmy Porter is the individual who resides in the deep bottom of every individual in the English young men and women at the time when the play

96 was written, So Look Back in Anger shows that it is so easy that one closes his eyes run from himself but to fall in the restrictions of society.

Osborne has shown the naked truth to the puzzled audience by who run from their failure. He has also demonstrated aptly that how hard people try to leave behind their loss, despair, failure, loss, and a futile life. People burn with eagerness to lead a decent life but they are not aware that life is wasted by the members of the society. In this respect, Osborne left no chance before people but to see themselves through an honest mirror and it is left for them to decide whether to revolt or to hide their faces under their pillows. It was not in Osborne’s hand to take every one by his hand to guide him or her nor does he have the authority to do so. Yet, at least he fulfilled his role in exposing a realized yet neglected realty of the modern man as an incarnation of failure. Then, we have Archaic Rice and rice family.

They are the people whose troubles seem not to exist anywhere else. Yet, their troubles and problems are those of any people who do not take them seriously. The personal failure of each character in the play is an indication of general failure of a whole generation. It is the failure of Billy Rice to live in the present sane world while he is overcome by nostalgia to a past governed by reason, convictions. Genuine traditions are sensed by the old English generation who can no more find themselves in the present world. The failure of Archie Rice to control the situation is out of control and a hysteric attempt to go on living. He experiences the dilemma and horrible bizarre condition of the middle class generation who found themselves manipulated and lost. They do not know how things happen. They are suddenly old, out of action, and with no achievement. Finally, there is the failure of Jean and Frank to be influential or to satisfy their desires to benefit from, yet they find themselves just like any figures in a group denied authority.

Luther among the characters created by John Osborne, he has a neurotic psyche. This psyche is applicable to all ages. John Osborne presents Luther as a character whose traits can be found in many characters in any society deprived of parental love. It is true that Luther is a historical play; yet, he represents spirit of the modern man who lives in a futile age.

97 However, the present investigation pursues the subject from the point of analysing the various causes such as social, economic, political and psychological which induce the main characters in the texts examined to adopt a rebellious position, against the injustices prevailing in the society. The motives for the characters to rebel have been explored from the perspective mentioned above.

Three main heroes are given as major representatives of rebellion. They are Jimmy Porter of Look Back in Anger, Archie Rice of The Entertainer and Martin Luther of Luther. The causes for revolt from the Osbornian rebel perspective have been demonstrated in the multiplicity of the forces motivating them to rebel. Thus, Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger swells on certain school, economic, political, religious, moral, as well as psychological (or personal ) causes for his revolt but the main concentration lies on the social reasons; in Archie Rice in The Entertainer and Martin Luther in Luther, the political and religious factors are receptively focused upon.

The main causes for the revolt of Osborne’s rebel may be summarily given as following: social inequality resulting from the predominance of class structure based on vast discrimination between people belonging to different social strata in European Establishments or systems as depicted in twentieth century England (in Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer) and sixteenth century Germany (in Luther): miserable working class conditions and the lack of social security and fair opportunities for those talented persons descending from lower social classes in society in particular, and for the poor exploited workers in general: the drastic rarity or absence of communication between Osborne’s rebel hero and those surrounding him in his own community.

Osborne’s rebel characters are concerned with political and social factors which affect them deeply. Strict conservatism and backward policy of the two leading parties in Britain: Labour and Tory and the Tories especially in relation to their incompetent dealing with English class – structure in the years seeding the Second World War played a major role to cause national decadence as symbolized by the fading glory of Britain’s imperial past and the decline of music hall tradition.

98 Osborne was aware of the importance of theatre to wake up people to the injustices and social problems. Osborne’s plays present evidence of his heroes’ social and political as well as psychological problems to point the heart-breaking social ills and problems emerged just aftermath of the Second World War. Osborne’s characters ask questions but they do not answer to those questions as it is clear that answers are left to the reader and audience to answer. We could say that Osborne makes no attempts to cure evils afflicting the society or provide solutions to them. He simply exposes experiences and amplifies them while making no presentations of offering any ready-made alternatives. His rebel heroes, on the whole, seem to be satisfied with shaking their targets to their very foundations and exposing the rottenness in their structure but fail to replace them with real positive substitutes. In this connection, Martin Luther, who belongs to sixteenth century Germany, forms an exception when compared with the writer’s twentieth century rebels. Unsatisfied with his defiance of the religious creed of his day, he launches an onslaught on the most powerful Establishment which is the Church. And He keeps on attacking religious and political figures of tyranny of the time and revolts against authority. Instead of the church’s indulgences, he offers his discovery that faith in God, and not doing penance saves the individual, and ultimately succeeds in reforming the rotten institutions of his time.

Osborne’s contemporary rebels have hope in the future and believe in change. It is, in fact, the author himself advocates the need for change. His plays suggest a dream of a more perfect vision, but do not provide the necessary tools for achieving it. His rebel heroes are supposed to be instruments of change. But, they seem to be unaware of their own plight. They are powerless to change the scheme of things for the better. In this respect, Osborne perhaps suggests that it is the deficiency of capitalist Britain which makes his rebels impotent and passive individual (Brustein, 1959: 99).

One may maintain that the negative aspects inherent in Osborne’s rebels and their ineffectual protest against the status quo are clear, for they offer no direct political or social solutions to further reform (Metwally, 1971: 93). Unlike active revolutionaries, his rebels are more concerned with the ideal one so they fail to provide practical solutions for their problems. Moreover, they have no ability and will to offer alternative solutions and

99 remedies for their plight, so they prefer the easy way of withdrawing from the society rather than facing their problems.

Nevertheless, the revolt of the Osbornian hero underlies some positive aspects. First, it is a manifestation of his resentment and rejection of his own society and his defiance of the status quo. Another considerable achievement is that he arouses those surrounding him to be aware of those problems inflicting all members of the society. We could claim that it is a step which may be regarded the primary prerequisite for change and radical reform in society. Furthermore, he manifests commitment to a wide variety of subjects and issues such as social, political, cultural and religious against which he strongly rebels (Hayman, 1976: 22). It has been shown that the heroes direct their most prominent commitment toward the working classes to cause reform and change in the society. However, Osborne’s rebel heroes with the possible exception of Luther are essentially men of action but they are frustrated by their inability to move in the right direction in the society in which they live and belong to. Herein, one may assume that verbal rebellion, though pertaining of no actual reformation and radical change as in the case of Osborne’s rebels, is a positive achievement and a standpoint. The heroes should be regarded as the pioneers who take a step forward towards actual revolution. This study will shed light on those future researchers who want to study Osborne and his theatre.

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105 CV

Personal Information: Name and Surname : Abdul Aljaleel Fadhıl Jamail AL-JAMAIL Place and Date of Birth : Bağdat – Irak / 07.10.1956 Marital State : Married

Educational Information: Bachelor : Bagdat Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi (1985-1989)

106 ÖZGEÇMİŞ

Kişisel Bilgiler: Ad Soyad : Abdul Aljaleel Fadhıl Jamail AL-JAMAIL Doğum Tarihi ve Yeri : Bağdat – Irak / 07.10.1956 Medeni Durum : Evli

Eğitim Bilgileri: Lisans: Bağdat Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, İngiliz Dili Eğitimi (1985-1989)

Yüksek Lisans: Bağdat Üniversitesi, İnsani Bilimler Enstitüsü, İngiliz Dili (2009)

Bilimsel Etkinlikler

12. Uluslararası Dil, Edebiyat, Kültür ve Eğitim Kongresi, 2018, Kemer, Türkiye

Bildiği Diller

Arapça (Anadil ileri düzey)

İngilizce (Çok iyi)

Türkçe (başlangıç)

107