Chapter Two Twentieth Century British Drama

CHAPTER TWO

TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITISH DRAMA Chapter Two Twentieth Century British Drama

2.1 Preliminaries

The primary concern in the previous chapter is to give a brief survey about the cuhural and intellectual scene of the twentieth century; and to shed light on the Theatre of the Absurd which Harold Pdinter is regarded one of its leading dramatistism British Drama. However, this theatre did not have the same wide influence as it had on the drama of the continent. In addition to Pinter, only few British dramatists of that period might be included, among them are N.F. Simpson and Tom Stoppard (1937-). The essential problems of the post-war generation in Britain were illustrated accurately through the dramatic works of some other playwrights who were not related to the Theatre of the Absurd; but who were closely related to Harold Pinter as the "angry young dramatists." Among those "angry" dramatists: Jhon Arden, Jhon Obseme and Arnold Wesker. Therefore man's crucial issues of the period will be investigated though the masterpieces of those leading playwrights of that period. The dominant spirit of the age was that of disappointment and disillusion which is revealed clearly in the drama of the period. However, it is helpful to have a brief look to British drama before Pinter and to come then to the period where Pinter and his contemporaries made a new "renaissance" in the mid twentieth century British drama.

46 2.2 British Drama Since Shaw British drama of the twentieth century started its first firmed step with the appearance of the plays of George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950). The first play to be performed was Widowers' Houses (1892) with its vigorous attack on slum landlordism, to declare a new era in the comedy of ideas and social criticism, (Ford: 1964:221): Shaw was to become the leading platform debater, as well as the leading dramatist of ideas, of the twentieth century. It is in the middle of this early period he wrote his magnificent masterpiece Man and Superman (1905) (Taylor : 1966:256): in which he first developed in detail his idea of the Life Force as the ruling factor in the life of man. However his finest plays were performed during the twenties of the century such as Heartbreak House (1920) followed by the ambitious play Back to Methuselah (1922). This play covers the history of humanity from Adam and Eve to the remotest future. Other plays of the twenties are: the most popular historical play Saint Joan (1923) and the political comedy The Apple Cart (1929). During the thirties Shaw remained prolific as ever, but his late plays were in general less interesting with the exception of two or three plays. In 1950 he wrote his last play Far - Fetched Fables, but it is considered below the level of his best work. For about sixty years, Shaw was the leading figure of British drama. In his plays, Shaw gives more concern to the socio-political problems of his society and state. Shaw gave drama its essential aim and called for drama of edification where he devoted most of his

47 plays to have didactic and moral aims and intentions. In these plays Shaw intended to draw the attention of his audience and readers to the real social problems and to expose the hidden evils of the whole established system (Clarke:1976:100): He sought from the beginning to expose the hypocrisy, stupidity and conventionality of our way of life and he did so in play after play with a rich wit and lively sense of comedy. Similar to the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906) who is regarded as the father of modern theatre, and whom Shaw admired and sometimes imitated; Bernard Shaw made his best to explore (Barnard : 1984:179): Social problems and drew the veils from public hypocrisies. The important aim of his drama is: To face his audience with completely new points of view and ways of looking at themselves and the society they lived in. Shaw's brilliant style is to show the opposite of what his audience expects, and rarely gives direct or already solutions for the problems he raises in his plays. He is the dramatist who gave comedy its brilliance and British drama its vitality. Waldo Clarke (1976:101) writes about Shaw's dramatic talent: In the realm of prose comedy and satire, in the presentation of the drama of ideas and in the perfection of his prose dialogue, Bernard Shaw achieved something very close to greatness.

48 T.R. Barnes (Ford: 1964:210) in his essay "Shaw and the London Theatre" praises Shaw's inteUigence and dramatic talent: there can be no doubt that his plays amused, stimulated, exasperated, and shocked his contemporaries; that no plays since Congreve 's have more pointed and eloquent dialogue, that he was a man of great intelligence and immense seriousness of purpose, and that only one of his contemporaries, in one play. The Importance of Being Earnest, can hold a candle to his best work: The other playwright of the period who wrote plays that are concerned with the daily life of the ordinary man is John Galsworthy (1867-1933). They are mostly tragic studies of the individual in a capitalist society. They show the political and social evils with apparent sympathy of the author for the lower - class people. Galsworthy began his literary career as a novelist, but he was encouraged to try his hand at drama after Shaw's great success as a playwright. His first play The Silver Box (1906) is a sober social drama followed by Strife (1909) which treats a topic of a working people strike and the suffering of their families. Galsworthy wrote Justice (1910) in the same theme of social classes. This play shows man's fate who is in a desperate attempt to escape from his miseries has the rest of his life ruined by the "Justice" of those in power, at last in despair he kills himself Galsworthy wrote his plays in the old-fashioned construction and conventions of the well-made realistic plays with social themes.

49 Another dramatist of the twenties is Somerset Maugham (1874- 1965) who began his literary career as a novelist. In his plays he made use of the conventions of the comedy of manners as it is shown in The Circle (1921), Our Betters (1923) and The Breadwinner (1930). Maugham's comedies are considered by critics as (Taylor: 1966:180): The wittiest and most elegant comedies of |^:»,\^y3>i"^''^*' manners in the English Language. These comedies in their wit and acuteness of observation gave Maugham a great reputation as a cynical dramatist. In all his plays (Clarke: 1976:101): Maugham showed a complete assurance in his handling of plot and character and a command of wit and effective satire Irish drama of the early twentieth century was of great contribution to modem British drama. In addition to what George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) had presented; the Abbey Theatre and other Irish dramatists related to it, provided British drama with a great number of brilliant and mature plays. The Abbey Theatre was the centre of the Irish Dramatic Movement founded by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1899. Although the aim of this movement was mainly Irish; in the sense that to present Irish plays that tackle Irish topics and written by Irish playwrights; yet it gave a wonderful vividness to British drama and theatre in general. This theatre enabled playwrights like W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Edward Martyne, and later on Sean O'Casey to persent marvelous drama.

50 W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) is regarded one of the great modern Irish dramatists, and might be the most enigmatic, but he is also one of the most subjective writers in modern British drama. If Shaw's drama is described as drama of ideas, and Oscar Wilde's as drama of wit; Yeats drama is considered as drama of images. Throughout his dramatic career Yeasts wrote nearly thirty plays. One of the most prominent characteristics of Yeast's drama (Roy: 1972:40): Is a compressed psychodrama of compulsion, presenting an irreconcilable conflict between transformation and identity, time and immutability. The basic Yeatsian action is dialectical, subject to innumerable combinations and permutations. He accepted and even eagerly courted change as an escape from sterile and constricting forms. But he also recognized how vulnerable and painfully exposed he became, not only to the egoistic demands of others, but to the ravages of his own unleashed anxieties. John Milington Synge (1871 - 1909) is one of the founders of the Irish Dramatic Movement. Though his literary career was very brief; yet he paved the way for the Irish dramatists to constitute a remarkable Irish drama within the general British drama. In both his tragedies and comedies, which are only six in number, Synge was exploring the potential of Irish peasant speech. The drama of Sean O'Casey (1880-1964) has more concern for the innocent victims. Most of his plays were written at the time of the Irish struggle for independence. O'Casey's plays are bitter comedies; their incidents take place mostly in the slums of Dublin.

51 They are about the Uves of or^inany people who suffer from the horrors of war and its evils. The first play that he wrote is The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), its incidents take place in one of Dublin tenements and it shows men's suffering during the war for independence. This play was followed by Juno and the Paycock (1924) a tragedy with a social theme about the miserable slum life of the Irish people. O'Casey's third successful play is The Plough and the Stars (1926) about the 1916 Easter Uprising. These three plays in addition to Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949) are regarded as his most successful plays. The last play might be the most accomplished of his plays, (Roy: 1972:82).

But it is for his earlier plays that O'Casey will be remembered, where he effectively dramatized the anguish of moral paralysis". British drama of the twentieth century, witnessed some attempts of reviving the poetic drama of the Elizabethan Age. Early at the beginning of the century playwrights like W.B. Yeats, and Stephen Philip (1864 - 1915) tried their hands in poetic drama, however their efforts were not so successful as T.S. Eliot's in the thirties of the century.

The first major change in British drama was during the thirties with the performance of Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral (1935) through which verse drama had its revival. In this play Eliot (Barnard: 1984:182): Focused on the spiritual crisis of Thomas a' Becket and the balance between the demands of the secular and the spiritual.

52 The remarkable success of this play resides not only in the use of verse, but also in the theme it tackles. It is that of (Clarke: 1976:103): The conflict in a man's soul against a background of deep religious and political significance. The play achieved great success in the use of ancient Greek technique of the chorus which comments on both the events of the play as well as its atmosphere. This in itself alone, creates a sense of universality to the whole theme of the play. Many critics have the idea that Eliot succeeds in Murder in the Cathedral in both the theme and the technique; however he is less successfial in his plays that deal with the contemporary life of his time, especially in his three post - war plays: The Coctail Party (1949), The Confidential Clerk (1953) and The Elder Statesman (1958). In these three plays one can not feel the great poetic or spiritual impulse that he can feel in Murder in the Cathedral and in The Family Reunion (1939). The latter play, though Eliot himself said that he was not satisfied with its method and solutions, yet it is applauded as a highly wrought poetic style, and the more interesting and effective than the three post - war plays. Eliot's drama is also distinguished by its depth and seriousness in the approach to human personality and human relationship. Eliot's successful use of poetic drama encouraged other playwrights of his generation to break through verse drama; among them W.H. Auden (1907-1973) and Christopher Isherwood (1904 - 1986) whom in collaboration wrote a series of poetic drama. Their plays are distinguished with emphasis on socialistic topics and

53 themes. But the outstanding success of verse drama after Eliot is to be found in the plays of Christopher Fry (1907-2005). He enriched British drama and theatre with many verse plays; he wrote The Boy with a Cart in 1938, but his first real success with the public was A Phoenix Too Frequent (1946) a witty one - act comedy. Noel Coward (1899-1973) is one of those leading dramatists whose plays are mostly comedies of manners. In these comedies he satires the social conditions of the post - war English society; with a trend to forget the horrors of the First World War. In his plays, Coward shows a dramatic talent with an elegant high comedy, following the traditions of the Restoration comedy which he continued throughout the years of his literary career. Coward was hailed as the spokesman of the younger generation of the early 1920s. Coward who was influenced by Oscar Wilde's style and technique (Taylor: 1966:75): will be remembered almost entirely as the most polished author of high comedy since the death of Wilde, an opinion borne out by the successful revival of several of his earlier comedies in the 1960s. After achieving great success as a novelist J.B. Priestly (1894 - 1984) changed to write drama; his plays diverted away from the traditions of the comedy of manners to present another type of experimental drama. This type of drama is shown more clearer in his late two plays T have Been Here Before (1937) and An Inspector Calls (1945). The basic theme of An Inspector Calls is sin and crime, however G.W. Brandt (Brown et al.: 1962:44) interprets this social theme arguing that:

54 What the Inspector seeks to uncover is sin rather than crime, which is the more normal concern of the police. But the author seems to see sin not primarily as individual man 's falling foul of his Maker, but rather in terms of what sociologists like to call interpersonal relationships. Sin then is wrong conduct, especially in the social sense of wrong conduct between the classes. Terence Rattigan (1911-1977) wrote his second play French Without Tears in 1936 while he was twenty years old. This play is regarded as his first dramatic success. Rattigan is praised by J.R. Taylor (1966:231): as. An extremely efficient craftsman, he remains one of the most reliable entertainers in the English theatre. Rattigan's drama might not match the brilliant wit of Coward nor the burning rhytoric of Osborne's serious drama; yet his dramatic fame and stature has not been shaken by the arrival of the angry young men playwrights of the late fifties and sixties. Since his first success in 1936 Rattigan went on writing comedies to come to Flare Path (1942) in which he broadened and deepened his dramatic talent. The Browning Version (1948) marked another remarkable dramatic success in the post - war British drama; . It is a one act-play (Anderson et al: 1971:379-380): a penetrating study of the effect of faded idealism and frustrated ambition upon an aging schoolmaster and his wife. It marked a new depth of feeling in Rattigan 's work.

55 Rattigan continued writing during the fifties and sixties, and in his drama he might be conventional: but the economical simplicity of his dialogue, characterization, and dramatic structure is a result of deliberate discipline and not poverty of the imagination, and demonstrates the strength as well as the limitations of the English well-made play. Graham Greene (1904-1991) who began his literary career as a novelist is mostly concerned in his writings with religious questions. The first play he wrote was adaptation of his novel The Heart of the Matter (1950) in collaboration with Basil Dean. The incidents of the play take place during the Second World War, about police commissioner who is entangeled in debts. This situation leads him to commit suicide which is against his catholic creed. Greene's first original play is the Living Room (1953) about the sin of adultery and suicide. In 1957 he wrote The Potting Shed with a religious theme of the recovery of faith. Although his plays can not be compared with the brilliance of his novels; yet he provided British drama with some thoughtful plays. N.C. Hunter (1908-1971) made his reputafion as a traditional dramatist in the school of Chekhovian naturalism. The new wave of the angry young men dramatists with all its changes in English dramaturgy, did not affect him. He remained faithful to the traditions of Chekhovian style of drama and to the formulas of naturalistic drama (Anderson et al : 1971:248): Within these limitations Hunter showed himself to be a craftsman of distinction, specializing in

56 somber portraits of frustrated hopes and muted resignation. John Whiting (1915-1963) was an exceptional dramatist of his time; his reputation was firmly established two years before his death, when his play The Devils was performed in 1961. Whiting's first dramatic work is Saint's Day (1951) an intense and obscure symbolic drama followed by A Penny for a Song (1954). Whiting attempted his characters to be symbols of wider themes not just cartoons of moral or political polemic; (Elsom: 1976:48): He shuffled around his symbolic characters, deliberately confusing the allegorical patterns in such a way that his scepticism came through, rather than his message. Regarding his dramatic stature in the post-war British drama, John Elsom (1976:50) puts Whiting among the leading dramatists of the period inspite of the few plays he wrote, and he regards his death as a great loss to British theatre: Too Much must not be claimed for Whiting's originality, but his death at the age of forty-six was a great loss to British theatre. In Marching Song, he had shown his ability to work within the rules, effectively, even disturbingly, while in The Devils he proved that he could break those rules, selectively, without losing control. Joseph Chiari (1971:127) agrees with Elsom that Whiting's : Untimely death robs the English stage of this most promising playwright. He had already shown by

S7 his mastery of craft and the depth of his vision that he had the making of a major dramatist. However Chiari (1971:126) does not agree with the critics who try to relate Whiting to the young playwrights of the angry drama, because he thinks that Whiting does not share these young playwrights their main preoccupations: The difference between this group and Whiting account for the latter's partial ostracism from the stage and for his limited success in an age dedicated to attitudes and beliefs which Whiting did not naturally possess or shunned as unworthy of a true artist. That Whiting was such a man, and that the quality and strength of his imagination was superior to any of those who hold the limelight, there should be no doubt about it.

2.3 British Drama Since Pinter 2.3.1 The Mood of the Period British drama of the post - war developed through the dramatic works of young playwrights of the late fifties of the twentieth century. Along with Harold Pinter are John Osborne, John Arden and Arnold Wesker who fastened their feet firmly as leading dramatists of the angry drama of that period. The year 1956 was considered by some critics as a historical turning point in the history of British drama. Osborne's Look Back In Anger which was first performed in 8' . May 1956 opened the

58 floodgates for the emergence of those remarkable playwrights. Since the performance of this play (Gascoigne:1962:196-197): a new life and excitement has entered the London theatre, which had been in a state of fitful hibernation since Shaw and Galsworthy: The general mood of the post - war period was full of despair and frustration. A sense of anger preoccupied the young generation's minds; and souls are filled with disgust and revulsion. Social and economic conditions were on the contrary to the claims of the Welfare State slogans. Britain, before the two World Wars, was one of the most powerful and prosperous economic forces in the world. This position was not a result of industrial growth inside Britain only, but it was also an outcome of the so - called "Invisible exports " dependent on immense investments overseas, and services of banking. The period between 1815-1914 was the period of "the Great Peace" in which Britain benifited from it more than any other European country (Thomson : 1965:24): No country enjoyed "the Great Peace" more than Britain: none was liable to suffer more deadly damage from 'the Great War. This is what David Thomson the English historian writes in his book England in the Twentieth Century. After the First World War Britain degraded (Thomson: 1965:18): from being the industrial and commercial heart of a world - wide overseas empire into an economically very vulnerable member of a Commonwealth of free States.

59 The economic crisis of the early thirties left about six to seven million people "Living on the dole " which was a national and human tragedy that men in power seemed to be helpless to do much about. Peace was something impossible to be achieved in the huge speedy rearmament in 1935 preparing for another destructive war. This huge process of rearmament in Britain as well as in other European countries, in addition to the bitter experience of the First World War shifted the public opinion in Britain towards pacificism. Man in Britain and abroad began to think deeply in a peaceful and prosperous future (Thomson: 1965: 206): A new resolve was born to build, form the sacrifices of war, a better society wherein none should be deprived of the necessities of life, and where the opportunity to work and to live in descent surroundings should be opened to all citizens. This dream had been destroyed by the breakout of the Second World War in 1939 in which Britain lost more of its colonies afterwards, and most of its stature as a great world power. Man who was dreaming of "the Welfar State" was disappointed, because nothing of remarkable importance was achieved. The most important thing to be achieved was to end the war; but its consequences were more horrible, socially and economically. Even in politics Britain began to be degraded more and more and to become a succeeding state to the politics and diplomacy of the United States of America. This sense of dependency was clear in the words of Aneurin Bevan (Thomson; 1965:240):

60 We have allowed ourselves to be dragged too far behind the wheels of American diplomacy. Britain at the period of the post-war was involved in many troubles at home and abroad. These problems created unfavorable political, social and economical circumstances. David Thomson (1965:257) describes this period of the mid fifties as: a time of troubled national conscience and moral doubts: doubts about industrial strife at home, colonial repression, nuclear power, and finally Suez.

2.3.2 Drama of Anger, Disappointment and Disillusionment The conditions of British drama and theatre were not so better than the general condition of the country. Under such conditions of frustration and despair, British writers, and playwrights in particular, contributed new literature with distinct flavour of anger, frustration and disappointment. The playwrights who appeared in the mid 1950s such as Pinter, Arden, Osborne and Wesker were labelled as ''the angry young men" to be regarded as rebellious figures in contemporary drama of the fifties and sixties of the century. They were compared to the French avant-gardists. After the performance of Osborne's Look Back in Anger in 1956, John Russell Taylor (1962:19) regarded this year as "something very much like the end of an era " in the modern history of English drama. Arnold Hinchliffe (1974:3) admits the influence of the continental theatrical art and ideas on those angry young

61 dramatists, especially that of Brecht and Beckett but he realizes the spirit of anger in their drama: we can detect anger in each, anger at society, and at the conditions in the theatre which mirrored that society. It is not only the protagonists of the angry drama who form a definite class characters but the playwrights of the angry drama themselves constitute a distinct group; most of them as Tynan observes (1964:54): Were leftish - liberal or outright socialist, a few, like Colin Wilson had religious aspirations; but on one point nearly all of them agreed. They detested "the establishment" - a phrase that had lately been coined to describe the hard core of top people, professional monarchists, archbishops, press baron, Etonian Tories, and Times leader writers According to Tynan those playwrights of the "angry drama" share similar attitudes and tendencies, and that they are preoccupied with the social and political problems of their country, believing that they constitute "a movement. John Whiting (Marowtiz et al: 1965: 109) on the other hand seems to accept those dramatists as "a movement" in the sense that they understand each other. He also states that they: may have the zeal and social passion of Zola and Dickens, but their instrument has far less effect.

62 Stuart Hall (Marowitz et al: 1965: 213) shares Tynan his views that these playwrights of the angry young men constitute a movement and that: The mood of feeling which informed the movement had deep roots already in naturalism, the desire to recreate working - class life, the preoccupation with humanist values and an interest in the attack upon Establishment values through social criticism On the contrary to Tynan and Hall, Charlez Marowitz (1965:14) does not accept the idea of the movement, arguing that the "angry young men" : Never was a movement in the sense that popular press tried to suggest, but there was undeniably a new impetus and a formidable output. However, though most of those playwrights have a working class origin and leftish liberal, yet they try hard not to fall notably behind certain "standard or leader". Accordingly the "angry young men" label could hardly refer to a movement in the limited sense of the word, but they had several important things in common; either in the ideas they treated in their plays, or in the way of expression; but this does not mean that they constituted a specific school or movement. Each had his own way, style and technique of writing but the dominant theme that preoccupied their drama of the period was mainly a reaction to the social and cultural circumstances that man and society of the post - war period were suffering.

63 These circumstances were revealed in man's sense of anger, frustration and disappointment; as it is obvious in the dramatic works of the post- war generation dramatists. The drama of the post - war period was mainly concerned with the theme of the individual in search for identity, and his fear, anxiety and difficulty to communicate with other individuals as in Pinter's plays. This theme is combined closely to the general theme of man's dilemma in our present time. Man's fear; his sense of disappointment and social alineation and isolation are symptoms of his cultural predicament and plight. Bamber Gascoigne (1962:48) classifies modem English drama in the first five decades of the twentieth century into three periods; each period has its characteristic. The period of the thirties where we have drama calling for action, the period of the forties where the theatre produced drama that emphasized on the individual whose problem was that of inaction; and at last the third period of the fifties where Pinter and his contemporaries appeared. In this period the playwright is: heavily pressed upon by family ties, by broad social forces and by a nagging sense of futility. The only positive values consistently put forward by the dramatists of the fifties are the individual's own individuality (or integrity) and his relationship with other human beings. More than any other group of plays since the beginning of the century the theatre of the fifties has been, quite simply, about people.

64 Waldo Clarke (1976:104) notices a great change in the drama of the fifties and sixties in which Pinter and his fellow dramatists presented their genuine works, either in the form or in the content: ...one is aware of a total change in belief and attitude as well as a most unusual experimentalism in technique. This is to be seen as much in Pinter's handling of dialogue as in Beckett's concentration on solitary figures working alone towards some glimpse of a modern truth. A new form for a new content is the aim of the dramatists of today and in their resolute search for this there is every promise for the future

The three dramatic works to be studied here that represent the spirit of the post-war period are Osborne's Look Back in Anger, Arden's Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, and Wesker's Trilogy. These three dramatic works are considered by most critics as masterpieces of the three playwrights and that they accurately mirror the period and its mood. The plays reflect the theme of anger, disappointment, and disillusionment; moreover those playwrights along with Harold Pinter, have proved to be leading dramatists in British drama during the whole period up to the present time. The central characters in these plays represent the man of the period, who is full of anger and suffers a bitter feeling of despair due to the problems and crises he encounters. The problems of those characters are the problems of every man during that period, they are mostly universal problems of humanity in the twentieth century. Problems of destructive wars and war crimes, terror and violence; social evils and abuses, conflict of ideals and ideologies. Man's mind

65 and soul are preoccupied with distress and anxiety. A sense of social alienation and isolation dominates the young generation of the post - war period. This was the mood of the period and it is the mood of the present age. The themes that are treated in these plays are in the same context of the general main theme of Pinter's early plays; it is that of the cultural dilemma of the contemporary man. Our present age is an extension and a sequence of a whole great century with all its magnificent achievements in all fields of human knowledge as well as its intricate crises and plights.

2.3.2.1 Anger And Discontent In Osborne's Look Back In Anger In this play, the central character Jimmy Porter is described from the very beginning of the play and through Osborne's stage directions; (Osborne : 1957:9-10) this description of Jimmy's character shows his paradoxical nature : a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice, of tenderness and freebooting cruelty; restless, importunate, full of pride, a combination which alienates the sensitive and insensitive alike. Blistering honesty, or apparent honesty, like his, makes few friends. To many he may seem sensitive to the point of vulgarity. To others, he is, is simply a loudmouth. To be as vehement as he is to be almost non-committal. Elsom (1976:77) finds this description of a remarkable significance to draw a good portrait for Jimmy's divided feelings:

66 The significance of these divided feelings was that it represented as well the tension between the longing for security and the desire for change: alienation, in short, in action, where we feel dissatisfied whatever we do. By these words Osborne sums up Jimmy's character. Osborne's description is very accurate where we find it true throughout the whole play and through his behaviour and monologues. The world of the play reveals Jimmy's spirit and mood. (Osborne : 1957 :9-10): Clouds of smoke fill the room from the pipe he is smoking.... The room is still, smoke filled. The only sound is the occasional thud of Alison's iron on the board. It is one of those chilly Spring evenings, all cloud and shadows. The very starting sentence in the play said by Jimmy discloses his disgust and to announce his importunate character (Osborne:1957:10): Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as last week's. Different books - same reviews. Jimmy begins to tease his friend Cliff and his wife Alison. He has nothing to do but teasing them by his snobbish language. Jimmy is proud of himself and he never hides this feeling of pride (Osborne: 1957:12): I'm the only one who knows how to treat a paper, or anything else, in this house.

67 Later on he says (Osborne: 1957:15).: Why do I spend nine pence on that damned paper every week? Nobody reads it except me. Nobody can be bothered. Jimmy seems very proud of his education and culture; that is why he always taunts Cliff and Alison of their poor education; always criticizes the papers and those who write in them. No one in Britain satisfies him, neither the intellects nor the politicians; his discontent reaches everyone and everything. Despite all his chattering and all his uneasy behaviour toward others, we feel his sufferings, his warm affections and his sensitivity. Jimmy longs for a lively life; he wants others to feel life as he feels it; he wants them to live life as it should be lived. He longs for human warm affections that he thinks are lost in this decaying age (Osborne: 1957: 15): Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm - that's all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah! (He bangs his breast theatrically) Hallelujah! I'm alive! I've an idea. Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive. Just for a while. What do you say? Let's pretend we're human Oh, brother, it's such a long time since I was with anyone who got enthusiastic about anything. This monologue reveals Jimmy's warm affections and represents the man in the west who feels that mankind begins to lose

68 its humanity, in a world of high speed industrialization; high speed in technology and more dependent on materialistic life. Jimmy criticizes the age where human beings transfer into beasts and wild creatures "Let's pretend that we're human beings". Jimmy's anger and discontent reach their uppermost when he realizes no reaction from both Alison and Cliff and no one shares him his ideas and feelings (Osborne: 1957:17): Nobody thinks, nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm Jimmy represents the post - war young generation who suffers its burdens. He feels that his country has lost its stature as a great cultural and economical world power. He has nothing to think of except to look back in anger to the glorious days of his country "/o the Edwardian twilight". It is the period between the turn of the century and the outbreak of the First World War. (Jaffares : 2002 :96) It is: the transitional period between the assured attitude of Victorian England and the excesses of total war ... Hence the concept of a twilight period between the high day of Victorian confidence and the coming night of twentieth- century doubt and scepticism. It is a sense of nostalgia that Jimmy refers to the glorious past of his country, especially when one finds no great things to be proud of in his present time. He speaks about this idea with bitter feelings (Osborne: 1957:17):

If you've no world of your own, it's rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else's.

69 An essential point about Jimmy is his relation with the past, and this can be realized from the title of the play. He feels angry when he looks back at the past, and to the Edwardian time in particular; where there were brave causes to fight for as he believes. In the meantime, he cannot accept that period and here resides his problem. Jimmy's anger and disappointment resides in his deep feeling of isolation and loneliness. He is angry because his present time has no great causes to fight and to sacrifice for. It is the suffering of the whole young generation of the fifties: / 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 forties, when we were still kidds... There aren't any good, brave causes left. Anger is more obvious in Jimmy's patriotic feelings and political notions when he realizes that his country after the Second World War becomes a second- rate power, it begins to lose its identity as a cultural world centre. This situation provokes him and forces him to attack, bitterly and sarcastically, such conditions (Osborne: 1957:17): Somebody said - what was it - we get our cooking from Paris (that's a laugh), our politics from Moscow, and our morals from Port Said. Jimmy goes on attacking what he believes a decline of the British Empire and a growing power of United States of America. America after the Great War began to be the ultimate leader of the new world order, and Britain has to follow the American diplomacy and politics (Osborne: 1957:17):

70 But I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age - unless you 're an American of course. Perhaps all our children will be Americans. This might be a warning to the British from the playwright through his mouthpiece, Jimmy Porter, to be aware of their culture. In the same sarcastic way, he attacks British upper-class families and their monopoly of power. He attacks Nigel, Alison's brother and his brother-in-law, and through him he criticizes the stupidity of British politics at home (Osborne: 1957:20). Nigel is: The platitude from Outer Space-that's brother Nigel. He 'II end up in the Cabinet one day, make no mistake. But somewhere at the back of that mind is the vague knowledge that he and his pals have been plundering and fooling every body for generations And nothing is more vague about Nigel than his knowledge. His knowledge of life and ordinary human beings is so hazy.... Besides, he's a patriot and an Englishman, and he doesn 't like the idea that he may have been selling out his countryman all these years, so what does he do? The only thing he can do-seek sanctuary in his own stupidity. Much of Jimmy's anger is directed to Alison's family to show the deep class divisions of English society in the 1950s. At the end of Act One Jimmy expresses his philosophy about life and how one should understand it, (Osborne: 1957: 37-38): Oh, my dear wife, you 've got so much to learn. I only hope you learn it one day. If only something

71 - something would happen to you, and wake you out of your beauty sleep.... I wonder if you might even become a recognizable human being yourself. But I doubt it. Furthermore the last sentences in this monologue before the fall of the curtains show Jimmy's self- pity and reveal his bitter sense of loneliness: She has the passion of a python. She just devours me whole every time, as if I were some over — large rabbit. That's me. That bulge around her navel - if you 're wondering what it is - it's me. Me, Buried alive down there, and going mad, smothered in that peaceful looking coil. Not a sound, not a flicker from her - she doesn't even rumble a little. And at the end of the play, Jimmy clarifies his ideas about life. One can not feel life and lives it as it should be unless he suffers; to suffer means to live and that is why Jimmy wants Alison to suffer in order to feel the real life, and to wake up from her ''beauty sleep". Jimmy thinks that people around him try to escape from the reality of life; people are not strong enough to face the realities of life. They do not want to suffer; therefore they do not want to live (Osborne: 1957:93): They all want to escape from the pain of being alive. And, most of all, from love. To suffer means to love and to love means to live. Even when he comes to terms to Alison; Jimmy's last words in the play addressing Alison (Osborne: 1957:96):

72 Because you're a very beautiful squirrel, but you 're none too bright either, so we 've got to be careful. There are cruel steel traps lying about everywhere, just waiting for rather mad, slightly Satanic, and very timid little animals. The only one who can understand Jimmy's situation is Colonel Redfern, Alison's father. In his conversation with her, the Colonel says (Osborne 1957:64): As for Jimmy - he just speaks a different language from any of us. Helena seems to be one who knows the essence of Jimmy's problem that (Osborne: 1957:90): He was born out of his time. He is an outsider in this society. His problem resides in his social alienation. Actually both Jimmy and the Colonel suffer this sense of social alienation and loneliness; but each has his own cause. Jimmy suffers because nothing of significance has been changed; while the Colonel suffers because he finds it difficult to come to terms with what he realizes great changes in the British Empire since he left England to India in 1914. Alison's words to her father summarize this psychological case (Obsorne:1957:68): You're hurt because every thing is changed. Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same. And neither of you can face it. Something's gone wrong somewhere, hasn 't itl In Most of his plays, Osborne's main character is a man who can not fit into his society. This is obvious not only in Look Back in

73 Anger; but also in The Entertainer (1957), Luther (1961), A Portrait for Me (1965) and other plays of the seventies. Jimmy seems to be a scatterbrained, he does not have a clear idea of what he wants; he has no positive future aim at all. All he is doing is blowing his anger here and there without any specific aim. He is suggested to be another ''Rebel Without A Cause". He is discontented, restless, angry and disappointed. Jimmy's anger and discontent go deep to his psychological case that he feels he is excluded from his society. Jimmy benefits from the opportunity of education but he is unable to go back to his working class origin. On the other hand as a working class origin he finds it difficult to find a suitable job after graduation in the complexities of the English class system. Jimmy is different now from his friend Cliff who is (Jaffares: 2002: 129-130): genuinely working class and has remained so, .... There is no route back for him into the working-class world of his childhood The alternative, the world of the middle/upper classes, is also impossible; that world can provide no refuge for him either. Jimmy suffers from a feeling of social alienation; his education has forced him out of his working class world; however his origin class barred him from accepting the alternative world of Alison's family. John Elsom (1976:72) analyses Jimmy's character as a young man who is trapped between his new social life and his aspiration on one hand, and his social inferiority on the other hand. He:

74 Hungers for power from the position of social inferiority.... His education... has left him with a Hunger for Culture, but with an uncertainty about values He is loaded down with longings and aspirations totally at odds with his circumstances in life His ambitions, almost too vague to define, are thus thwarted on all sides. He does not know what he wants And if he did know, his social situation would have stopped him from attaining them. Failing any other outlet for-his energy, Jimmy's frustrations turn into self — loathing and are then re-directed outwards, into aggression against Alison. Jimmy is apparently a passive character; he seems unwilling to participate positively in normal everyday action as the protagonists of Wesker's Trilogy for instance. He seems unwilling to better himself, to find a better job and to live-in a better social standard. He never gives himself the opportunity to act positively to take social or political action for the general betterment of his society. His young energy is lost in chattering and teasing other people around him. He is rather a preacher than a man of action. However, he is regarded by many critics (Elsom : 1976: 76) as a representative of the angry young generation of the post - war Britain, as well as the mouthpiece of the playwright; through him Osborne: Was voicing the natural uncertainties of the young, their frustrations at being denied power, their eventual expectations of power and their fears of abusing it, either in running a country or a family.

IS Elsom believes that the play presents: Such a gloomy picture of a dispossessed ex- graduate that the truly working- class plays at the Theatre Workshop seemed cheerful by comparison. Jimmy might be regarded as a critic of his society and the object of criticism as well. He is an ideal example of discontent, restlessness, anxiety, and frustration; and an accurate example of social alienation. Most of the play is long monologues said by Jimmy; he always attacks, criticizes and sometimes preaches. He seems to be at war with himself. However, Osborne in these long speeches uses a very fluent, effective and lucid language. He knows how to master the dialogue and to draw the reader's or the audience's attention through his rhetorical language. Critics might blame Osborne for his monologues of his central character; yet they can not but appreciate his marvelous rhetoric. Joseph Chiari (1965:109-110) indicates that the play is not well constructed and that the whole first act is only a monologue said by Jimmy; nevertheless he evaluates highly the dialogue as brilliant and fiill of memorable phrases and : one could not miss the authentic ring of truth in the frustration which he voices. Chiari (1965:114-115) believes that Osborne's dramatic skill resides in how he interwove these monologues to write very brilliant language: But his strong point is language, language not so much language in dialogue form, as in alternating

76 or interwoven soliloquies which carry the play forward through memorable moments of brilliant wit and striking invective. No one in the English theatre, with the exception of Arden, shows the same command of language. Gascoigne (1962:197) also refers to the vitality in Osborne's characters and their dialogue as the great merit of the writer's work. Emil Roy (1972:106) comments on Osborne's Language and his histrionic gifts stating that: Osborne's language remains among the most striking and idiomatic in the English theatre, conveying however the frustration and bitterness toward loveliness felt by his protagonists far more effectively than it sustains any genuine dialectic .... Yet if none of his plays has individually achieved the stature of Pinter's The Homecoming or Arden's Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, Osborne's histrionic gifts are great ...As a playwright whose characters project the agony of isolation with drive and compelling fantasy, he is rivaled only by Pinter. According to Robert Barnard (1984:183): The brilliance of the play lies in the bitter rhetoric, touched alternately with hilarity and hysteria, which is Jimmy Porter's primary response to life.

11 2.3.2.2 The Disappointed Idealist in Arden's \to>~ -: ^ Serjeant Musgrave's Dance The play is about the arrival of four deserters in a northern town in Britain in the 1880s; led by a serjeant his name is Black Jack Musgrave. We come to know that Musgrave was loyal and honest to his job and country, and was sure that the wars he fought were for good causes and for the good sake of his country. Now, in a fit of frustration and disappointment; he comes to a certainty that the British army in the colonies is fighting unjust wars where men are killed for no good causes. In the mean time wars now are against his religious doctrine. (Arden: 1960:33): 'Cos all that we know now is that we 've had to have behind us a colonial war that is a war of sin and unjust blood. Musgrave's ostensible aim in the town is recruiting young men to join the army of the Empire; but his real aim is to teach the people a lesson about the horrors of war. His real mission now becomes clear; he is against war and its crimes (Arden: 1960:34): We 're each one guilty of particular blood. We 've come to this town to work that guilt back to where it began. Musgrave represents the post - war individual whose mind is preoccupied with the horrors of war, with the social evils that the war has brought about. A man who is confused and anxious. Musgrave now is changed from that idealist sane man into a disappointed man. He comes here to show the people of this town how war is terrible.

78 We see Musgrave (Arden : 1960:37) praying in the churchyard and through this pray we come to know he is mentally deranged: God, my Lord God. Have You or have You not delivered this town into my hands? All my life a soldier I've made You prayers and made them straight, I've reared my one true axe against the timber and I've launched it true. My regiment was my duty, and I called Death honest, killing by the book-but it all got scrawled and mucked about and I could not think clear... Now I have my duties different. I'm in this town to change all soldiers' duties. My prayer is: keep my mind clear so I can weigh Judgment against the Mercy and Judgment against the Blood, and make this Dance as terrible as You have put it into my brain. The Word alone is terrible: the Deed must be worse. But I know it is Your Logic and You will provide. This passage reveals Musgrave's religious faith as a man who believes sincerely in God and in his religious doctrine; yet it reveals his mental deviation. In a very lucid piece of language Arden shows us Musgrave's mental case and his confused mind. He has come to this town with a sacred mission. He wants to put an end to unjust wars, yet he is not the qualified man for that. Now he is insane, his mad logic, which he calls the Logic of God brings him to a certainty that he is ministering God's Justice. He looks upon himself as the wrath of God and His punishment on earth. This is now his sacred duty as fighting was in the past. According to his mad logic, Musgrave has to kill five men of this town for each soldier killed in

79 the war. Therefore for the five soldiers, he knows, he has to kill twenty five (Arden: 1960:91): One man, and for him five. Therefore, for five of them we multiply out, and we find it five - and - twenty... So, as I understand Logic and Logic to me is the mechanism of God-that means that today there's twenty -five persons will have to be—. Musgrave thinks that he is the scourge and minister of God's vengeance. As a scourge he punishes wickedness in others, but he himself is destroyed in the process, since he uses violence in seeking justice and retribution. Musgrave's intentions might be good; he is the man who has seen the horrors of war and suffered from its evils. His sacred mission now is to enlighten people and to show them how war is terrible. However, his flaw resides in the means through which he tries to fulfill his message. Musgrave now is mentally deranged; he is not qualified now to preach against war or to have action. He is as Michael Anderson describes (1976:61): A crazed deserter intent on making his own protest against the horror of colonial war. Like many of his contemporary dramatists of the late fifties and sixties of the twentieth century; Arden pays great attention to the post - war problems either inside Britain or abroad. Britain faced many crises in the colonies. This play is definitely a voice of protest against colonial wars in which Britain was involved, and against social and economic problems caused by these wars. It is also against violence and terrorism in general that prevails the whole world; and this is what John Arden (1976:7) emphasises in his introduction to the play:

80 / have endeavored to write about the violence that is so evident in the world, and to do so through a story that is partly one of wish - fulfdlment. I think that many of us must at sometime have felt an overpowering urge to match some particularly outrageous piece of violence with an even greater and more outrageous retaliation. Musgrave tries to do this: and the fact that the sympathies of the play are clearly with him in his original horror, and then turn against him and his intended remedy, seems to have bewildered many people. Colonialism and rapid industrialization in Europe are twin issues that can never be separated. The military occupation of many countries by Britain is due to economic reasons and military convenience. Therefore the play should be considered as a voice of protest and condemnation against colonial war crimes and working - class exploitation. Musgrave in this case is a victim of such wars with their horrors and crimes; his sense of frustration and despair led him to his madness. Bamber Gascoinge (1962:205) believes that the play's obvious targets are: The horrors of war and of industrial or colonial exploitation, but its deepest protest is against any totalitarian method of ending these injustices. Both Musgrave and Jimmy Porter are examples of the frustrated generation in the fifties and sixties. Although the setting of the play has a historical background of the nineteenth century; yet it speaks about the involvement of Britain in colonial war in the fifties

81 and sixties of the century. Arden suggests different areas among them Cyprus and Aden. He wrote in a Programme note to 1965 revival of the play (Page : 1985:22): Its sidelong references to the Cyprus troubles over - shadowed the main content .... The action has now settled into legend. Cyprus may be a solved problem. May be. Aden? Malaysia? Do I have to list them? Rhodesia was once a Victorian Imperialist adventure. Musgrave might be a modem tragic figure as Ann P. Messenger suggests (1972: 307-312). He has good intentions, a man who looks for the good of humanity, and he challenges war as one of the serious issues of modem life; yet he fails and is destroyed. Musgrave: Is destroyed when his conscience drives him against the public world, against what we see from our perspective in time as inevitable historical necessity. We may sympathise with him for these good intentions, but we condemn the method he uses to achieve them. In the prison and at the very end of the play, one of his soldiers tells him (Arden: 1960:102): To end it by its own rules: no bloody good you 're wrong. You can 't cure the pox by further whoring ". In addition to the theme of war crimes and working class exploitation; the play raises the question of government corruption. It is that of putting religion at the service of colonial wars. This is shown clear in the character of the Parson and in his speech to

82 persuade the young colliers to join the army. Paul W. Day (1975:242) considers the Parson as a hypocritical figure ''paying lip-service to the graces of traditional rank and culture ". The Parson stands as contrast to Musgrave who is more sincere in his religious beliefs. The play treats also corruption in politics and social life as it is shown in the behaviour or suffering of other characters of the play. The play is an outrageous cry of anger against the evils of war. Arden presents war as something sordid and vicious; the ugly face is unmasked and we see blood, madness, brutality, chaos, and misery. No one is immune and nothing is safe. This play puts John Arden as one of the most traditional playwrights of the fifties and sixties in the sense of being the one most deeply in touch wiih literary and theatrical tradition. Robert Barnard (1984:187) appreciates the play as: One of the key works of the dramatic revival: a dark fable, eclectic in technique, which preached a powerful message about war and the inhumanity of man to man within the capitalist system. Arden has a lively mind, and a well developed historical imagination. In Searjeant Musgrave's Dance, as in his other early plays; he seems to be fond of traditional ballad and he allows its influence to permeate his language and the construction of the play. (Brown: 1972:194): Like ballad singers, Arden did not wish to argue, but to offer a fable, full of climactic activity and clear statement, and let the audience draw its own conclusions.

83 Arden does not provide pictures of contemporary life as in the works of Pinter, Osborne or Wesker. He usually chooses historical subjects to avoid direct comparison with everyday reality as in Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, (1959) Armstrong's Last Goodnight (1964) and Ironhand (1963). He might be the first British playwright to show the apparent influence of Brecht on British theatre. In Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, (Elsom : 1976:99): Arden used black humour, ballads, Brechtian analysis and scenes almost constructed on Jacobean models to establish a boisterously bitter mood, which has characterized at least one side of his subsequently prolific writing career Joseph Chiari (1965:118) evaluates the play as one of the best plays written by Ardern and it shows Arden': Qualities of originality, vision and poetic language which make of him a dramatist of real promise".

2.3.2.3 Idealism And Disillusionment in Wesker's Trilogy Arnold Wesker (1932) is one of the key figures in the twentieth century drama; and one of the dramatists of the angry drama of the fifties and sixties. Wesker gives more attention to the everyday life of ordinary people with some clear social criticism. Most of his early plays are about the corrupted conditions of post-war Britain. In his plays he gives more attention to family life and that of the working class in particular. His main concern is to bring art and enlightment to

84 the masses. He is a playwright of ideas and idealism. In an article he wrote very early in 1958 (Marowtiz: 1965:96) Wesker announced: It is the bus driver, the house wife, the miner and the Teddy Boy to whom I should like to address myself. The Wesker Trilogy which includes: Chicken Soup with Barley, Rotts and I'm Talking About Jerusalem, covers the life of the British working class between 1936 and 1959. The period in which the working class was motivated with socialist beliefs and principles. The Trilogy has the theme of disappointed young generation of the post - war Britain who found themselves faced with many social, economic and political problems. The Trilogy puts Wesker among the leading dramatists of the period. It is one of the first serious and successful political plays to be written in England in the late fifties of the twentieth century. In this Trilogy (Clurman: 1958:1966:174): One surmises that Wesker is trying to say that the only hope of change is through the resolute struggle of the working class alone; that no solution is to be expected from upper-class idealists. The Trilogy treats a young generation's question, (Gascoigne: 1962:199) to change from idealism to disillusionment, and the characters of the three plays mostly change from young revolutionaries to middle - aged petty capitalists.

The Trilogy has strong central characters whose individual problems are the problems of the whole community. In this trilogy we come across characters who begin as enthusiastic young idealists and

85 end as disillusioned. Sarah Kahn the dominent figure in the Kahn family and the strongest militant, remains firm in her political beliefs while others gradually begin to lose faith in politics and suffer from a sense of disappointment. Socialism to Sarah is love, brotherhood, and warm affections (Wesker : 1964 :29-30): What is the good of being a socialist if you 're not warm Love comes now. You have to start with love. How can you talk about socialism otherwise. Socialism to young Ronnie, her son, is (Wesker : 1964:41): Plans for town and country planning. New cities and schools and hospitals.... Nationalization! National health! Think of it, the whole country is going to be organized to cooperate instead of tear at each other's throat. That's what I said to them in a public speech at school and all the boys cheered and whistled and stamped their feet - and blew raspberries. Ronnie the enthusiast socialist comes to a point of disappointment. He was brought up by his mother, Sarah, the militant member of the working class movement; and he was greatly influenced by the socialistic thoughts and ideals of Dave and Ada. Now he sees the facts opposite to what he has been dreaming. His comrades are changed and they have nothing public to care about; they only care about themselves and their own private interests. Crises in Britain, in addition to international crises of the socialist movement, and the Russian involvement in Hungary in 1956; all this bring Ronnie into a state of disillusionment. All the

86 ideas and ideals he was fighting for, break into pieces in front of him. He addresses his mother (Wesker: 1964:72-73) And now look what's happened. The family you always wanted has disintegrated and the great ideal you always cherished has exploded in front of your eyes. But you won 'tface it. You just refuse to face it You 're a pathological case. Mother - do you know that? You 're still a Communist^*. Ronnie's mind is confused now; nothing is clear, everything is hazy and fogy; he is completely disappointed (Wesker : 1964:73): I don 't see things in black and white any more. My thoughts keep going pop, like bubbles. That's my life now -you know? - a lot of little bubbles going pop". Sarah, is the only character who seems to remain fixed to her beliefs and ideals. She tells Ronnie that she is still a communist and that she will remain so and she will not give up, (Wesker : 1964:73- 74): All right! So I'm still a communist! Shoot me then! I'm a communist. I've always been one .... All my life I worked with a party that meant glory and freedom and brotherhood. You want me to give it up now? You want me to move to Hendon and forget who I am? If the electrician who comes to mend my fuse blows it instead, so I should stop having electricity? I should cut off my light? Socialism is my light I've got to have light.

87 I'm a simple person, Ronnie, and I've got to have light and love. Even this enthusiastic militant idealist seems to have a slight hint of frustration and disappointment in her words to her son, Ronnie, at the very end of Chicken Soup with Barley (Wesker: 1964:75): Please, Ronnie, don't let me finish this life thinking I lived for nothing. We got through, didn 't we? We got scars but we got through. You hear me, Ronnie? [She clasps him and moans] You 've got to care, you 've got to care or you 'II die. Monty, who has begun his life as an enthusiastic socialist, and used to participate and organize demonstrations; gives up politics and begins his new life as a greengrocer, thinking that he has nothing to do more, and he has to look after his own family. Life to him is only his small family and some friends. He addresses Sarah (Wesker 1964:62): / haven't got any solutions any more. I've got a little shop up north -I'm not a capitalist by any means- I just make a comfijrtable living and I'm happy. Bessie — bless her — is having a baby I'm going to give him all that I can, pay for his education, university if he likes, and then I shall be satisfied. A man can't do anything more, Sarah, believe me. There's nothing more to life than a house, some friends, and a family-take my word There's nothing I can do any more.

88 I'm too small; who can I trust? It's a big, lousy world ofmadpoliticians-I can 't trust them Sarah. Monty's concern now shifts from the general benefit into a very limited and private interest. Socialism to him now is to make a good family and to take care of it. Monty now confines himself in a very tiny world of his small family where he could find peace and tranquillity. He comes to disillusionment that he is unable to give more or to go on fighting for the good sake of the public. He feels that he has been deceived, that is why he says he can not trust anyone anymore. Dave and his wife, Ada, come to the same certainty that they were struggling for nothing. For about twenty years they struggled as young militant members in the socialist movement, seeking for a social community, at last they come to disillusionment. They give up fighting and start to live their own solitary life in the country away from the crowded world of the city. Life to them now is to take care of themselves and their children. However, their problem is not with communism but with the defects of progress. Ada, the firebrand enthusiastic and active pioneer, rejects living in the industrial society. She tells Ronnie, her brother, that she is leaving London (Wesker: 1964:41): When Dave comes back we shall leave London and live in the country. That'll be our socialism. Remember this Ronnie: the family should be a unit and your work and your life should be part of one existence, not something hacked about by a bus queue and office hours. A man should see, know, and love his job. Don't you want to feel your life?

89 Savour it gently? In the country we shall be somewhere where the air doesn 't smell of bricks and the kids can grow up without seeing grandparents who are continually shouting at each other. Ada and her husband Dave, in a state of disillusionment, think that they can find a solution for their problems in the countryside. Industrial life is a source of man dehumanization. (Wesker: 1964:42): The only rotten society is an industrial society. It makes a man stand on his head and then convinces him he is good ~ looking. I'll tell you something. It wasn 't the Trotskyist or the Social Democrat who did the damage. It was progress! There. Progress!. Romanticism is very obvious in Ada's thoughts as well as in Dave's. This man, who took part in the Spanish Civil War as a militant communist, and was one of the active political socialists of the 1930s; gives up politics and starts a new romantic life in the country. Similar to Ada, he believes that there is nothing wrong with socialism; however they want to establish their own private socialism in the country and within their small family. (Wesker: 1964 :164): Nothing's wrong with socialism Sarah, only we want to live it - not talk about it. So this is the outcome of Deve's experience. Socialism is not talking but practicing. Dave also believes that industrial life in the city is a basic cause of man's dehumanization. In the third play of the

90 trilogy Pm Talking About Jerusalem, Dave tells Sarah about the brutality of life in the factories (Wesker : 1964:164-165): / know the city Sarah. Believe me sweetheart! Since being demobbed I've worked in a factory turning out doors and window frames and I've seen men hating themselves while they were doing it. Morning after morning they've come in with a cold hatred in their eyes, brutalized! All their humanity gone. These you call men? All their life they 're going to drain their energy into something that will give them nothing in return.... There I shall work and here, ten yards from me, where I can see and hear them, will be my family. And they will share in my work and I shall share in their lives. I don't want to be married to strangers. I've seen the city make strangers of husbands and wives, but not me, not me and my wife. Dave's enthusiasm for a socialist international community changes into frustration and disappointment. His socialistic world now is the world of his own family, and his people now are his wife and kids. The realistic world changes into one of romantic rural world in the countryside. Ideology and idealism are broken on the rock of Dave's disillusionment; and those disappointed people of ideas and ideals according to John R. Taylor (1962,1977:150): are taught to live for others, and the tragedy in their lives comes when they learn through bitter experience that their services are not required and

91 in any case others may well be not worth their trouble. Those people are really serious fighters who fought for the values and ideals in which they believe but they are defeated from within. Wesker's characters in his Trilogy come to conclusion that peace and happiness will be achieved by withdrawing from public life to one very limited private life. Here Wesker's and Pinter's characters meet; they try to find their peace in isolated lodgings away from the crowded world; and here we could find romanticism in the works of Wesker and Pinter as Clifford Leech argues (Brown et al. : 1962:15) in an article he wrote early in 1961, Leech says: Like Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798, Wesker and Pinter today are keenly aware of the nature of their contemporary situation. The two poets at the end of the eighteenth century were conscious of social disturbance as men stumbled further into industrial development, as a war or the threat of war engaged England and the continental powers, as the minds of men grew dulled through these things. Now the threat is graver, and we may find in Wesker and Pinter young writers who are principally concerned to look our world in the face, with its twin dangers of a universal destruction and a universal society of persuaded consumers. Similar to Jimmy Porter in Osborne's Look Back in Anger and to Musgrave in Arden's Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, Wesker's

92 characters in his Trilogy come to a state of disillusionment and suffer from a sense of disappointment. These three dramatic works reflect the post - war life not only in Britain but in the whole west. They express the minds of both the playwrights and the general public. People after the Second World War in the west became aware of grave crises and problems concerning man's psychology and social life. In addition to Osborne, Arden and Wesker, there were many other playwrights contemporary to Pinter in the period of the fifties and sixties who wrote about such problems of the contemporary man.

2.4 Pinter: The Dramatist And Thinker 2.4.1 Preliminaries To study Pinter's drama, requires knowing something about his career as a dramatist and as thinker. Pinter is not merely a playwright; but a man of thought. His plays express human suffering; and the more one reads his literature the more one discovers new genuine ideas. Pinter emerged as a playwright in 1957, when he was twenty- seven years old. In 1948 he joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, for about two terms. He first worked as a professional actor in a B.B.C. Home Service Broadcast in 1949. But his first appearance was in Shakespeare's Henry VIII for B.B.C. Third program in 1951; in this year also he resumed his training as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Pinter's dramatic works show him as a well

93 talented, well educated and well experienced dramatist that he excels his contemporary British dramatists. However, his poetic gift was shown early in his life when he was in his twenties. His first published poetry was seen in Poetry London in its edition No. 19, August 1950 and No. 20, November, 1950. Pinter's first play The Room (1957); written at the request of his friend, Henry Woolf, for the Drama Department of Bristol University. This play as Esslin (1977:60) describes: Shows the emergence of a firm dramatic structure and well-observed characters from the world of lyrical dream images, which pervaded his early poetry, with particular force and clarity. This play contains the essential themes of Pinter's distinct dramatic style in his later works of the sixties; especially the ''''comedies of menaced The poetic image of the room, and the world of mystery and suspense remain essential elements in Pinter's later more successful plays; such as The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker. It is also seen in A Slight Ache; though in this play Pinter seems to depart from the closed rooms to a country house with a large well kept garden. This essential poetic image of the room was described by Pinter in a radio interview with Hallam Tynnyson, August 1960 (Esslin: 1961,2001:235): Two people in a room -1 am dealing a great deal of the time with this image of two people in a room. The curtain goes up on the stage, and I see it as a very potent question: What is going to

94 happen to these two people in the room? Is someone going to open the door and come in? The people who inhabit this room suffer from unknown menace; they are frightened of something awful to disturb their peace. Pinter's answer to a question from Kenneth Tynan in a radio interview in October 28, 1960 (Esslin: 1961, 2001:235) about the cause of the people's fear, who are inside the room; Obviously they are scared of what is outside the room. Outside the room there is a world hearing upon them which is frightening. I am sure it is frightening to you and me as well.

2.4.2. Pinter's Absurd Drama Of all the dramatists who emerged in the mid twentieth century, and who created vitality to contemporary British drama; Pinter seems to be the most interesting. He is the only one of those playwrights of the renaissance in British drama of the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century, who continues his career successfully influenced by the absurdism of the Continent. Pinter has established his own distinctive drama which is different from the drama of Osborne or Arden, (Andersen: 1976: 13): Whereas Arden, for his purposes, saw character in terms of social function and social relationships; Pinter sees it largely as a field of powerful, inexplicable forces acting from within. That is because he is more intellectual writer. The poetic image of the room, for example, was deeply interpreted by critics in an existential context; (Esslin: 1961, 2001: 235-236):

95 The room becomes an image of the small area of light and warmth that our consciousness, the fact that we exist, opens up in the vast ocean of nothingness from which we gradually emerge after birth and into which we sink again when we die. Pinter's drama has attracted the audience, theatre critics; but above all academic researchers and students; because it is fiill of intellect and deep philosophical concepts about man and the world in which he lives. Pinter's plays are considered as an accurate expression of the time in which they are written. They deal with man's suffering from anxiety, uncertainty, insecurity, fear and terror in the present age. They express the eternal truths in human behaviour as Michael Karwowski puts it (2003:http://www.findarticles.com): Harold Pinter's great stage plays are fundamentally concerned with the research for truth and the ultimate reality it reveals. From this perspective, there are only two philosophical poles to human experience: on the one hand, truth and the reality it reveals, on the other, its contrary, a self-interested desire for power and the illusions which arise from the desire. Arnold Hinchliffe (1976, 1981:10-11) asserts that Pinter is an absurd dramatist, regarding both the content and the technique he uses in his plays. Pinter's fusion of the European and the universal with the native and local, places him the leading dramatist among his

96 contemporary British dramatists. In his "Preface" to his book Hinchliffe states that: We need no longer struggle to define him as an absurd dramatist. His work fuses aspects of European theater with the English way of life and English manners; it is this fusion of the foreign and native, the timeless and the universal with the particular and local that gives the plays their enduring quality. He will remain one of Britain 's most important twentieth-century dramatists-in my opinion, the most important. Pinter acknowledges the influence of Kafka and Beckett whose literature is preoccupied with ''man at the limit of his being". It is this preoccupation that distinguishes Pinter from his contemporary British playwrights. Pinter says in one of his interviews with Lawrence M. Bensky in 1967 (Esslin : 1977:36) that he read many of the European writers at a very early age among them Kafka and Beckett but he never heard of lonesco until he had written his first few plays. The drama of the absurd is the drama of intellect; it addresses the intellectuals and the intellect of the age. It goes deeper to speak to the mind and to deal with the intellectual and the cultural issues of man and society. Thus, Pinter's dramas do not deal with the surface of man's daily life only; but they dive deeper to his inner-most consciousness to stir his senses and feelings. According to Martin Esslin (1961, 2001:264) Pinter is one of the major dramatists of the Absurd who: Represents the most original combination of avant-garde and traditional elements. The world

97 of his imagination is that of a poet under the shadow of Kafka, Joyce , and Beckett. But he translates this vision into theatrical practice with the technique of split-second timing and the epigrammatic wit of the masters of English high comedy from Congreve to Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. Pinter is similar to Martin Heidgger (Eslin: 1977:35) in the sense that both take their starting point: In man's confrontation with himself and the nature of his own being, that fundamental anxiety which is nothing less than a living being's basic awareness of the threat of non — being, of annihilation. Pinter's protagonists suffer a great feeling of anxiety and fear; and his ""comedies of menace"" are filled with comic scenes and tragic situations. Pinter thinks that horror and absurdity go hand in hand in his plays (Esslin: 1961, 2001:242): There is a kind of horror about and I think that this horror and absurdity go together. The comic scenes gradually come to a point of horror and tragedy as in Stanley's case in The Birthday Party. Dread and anxiety preoccupy the world of Pinter's early plays; an agent of menace and destruction is always at the door of the closed room waiting for the suitable moment to force itself into the inside, to destroy the warmth and peace of this room and the victim inside it, as it is seen in The Room, The Birthday Party and A Slight Ache.

98 These plays speak plainly of the scared man who searches for security and peace. Pinter's dramatic talent was cultivated and polished through his academic dramatic study and through his experience as an actor since 1951. He is really a gifted dramatist as a playwright, actor and director. Throughout his dramatic career, Pinter's veracity in this field of arts gives him a good chance to contribute not only to this literary genre in particular, but to English literature in general. He remains strict, and proves to be genius in the drama of the absurd. However, he also sticks to the conventions of traditional drama as John Elsom observes (1976:107): On one level, his plays are conventional. They normally take place in box sets, have not only curtains after acts but also curtain lines, and many scenes reveal the shadowy outlines of stock "mystery" plays from the early 1950s. Pinter's careftil evolution from the old familiar forms of drama to the new ones is evident in his stagecraft; together with the influence of the dramatists of the theatre of the absurd; however, Pinter's originality and innovation is not to be denied. Although he is influenced by Beckett; yet there are distinct differences between the two and that Pinter's drama has its own evident traits. These features can be realized in the feelings and in the settings of his plays. The settings of Pinter's plays are mostly realistic enough. In his plays there is more poetry caused by the skillful use of the repetitions and of everyday conversation. Pinter's drama

99 (Barnard: 1984:186) gives an impression of both contrasting feelings of amusement and frightening: The humour sharpens the fear that arises from the sense of inadequate comprehension Comedy and fear mingle in the action as well: menace is in the air, but it is not pinned down, or explained. The root of fear in his early plays raises not only from the universal or cosmic disaster as it is in the most works of the dramatists of the absurd in Europe; but also from ''the real threat of physical violence"" as Elsom puts it (1976:108-109). This could be seen clearly in the case of Stanley Webber in The Birthday Party when he is taken at the end of the play, dumb with fright to his dreadful mysterious destination. It is seen also in the case of Davies in The Caretaker who is finally cast out of the refiige that Aston has offered him; to suffer from another tormented life outside this shelter. According to Existentialism and the Theatre of the Absurd, man has no future to look forward to. His life is no more than a dreadful nightmare of waiting for nothing certain and nothing clear. Man's life and the whole existence is covered in vaguness. Pinter's characters in his early plays seem to have no future to look forward to. (Brown et al: 1962:131): '"JX ' \ { ^'2^^' Pinter's Stanley is taken away, depersonalized and helpless, possibly to a mental home, possibly to execution. Davies is ejected from his last refuge through his own inescapable weaknesses. Violence might not be seen physically on Pinter's stage, neither we could see blood; but this does not mean that physical violence or

100 bloodshed will not take place even outside the stage. There is enough sense of terror fiised with humour and comedy on the stage that indicates that violence might take place off-stage; because menace is felt everywhere through the whole performance of the play. This sense of menace in Pinter's plays can be compared to that felt in Kafka's works. The outside world of Pinter's characters is always insecure. Those characters think that their safety might be achieved inside their closed rooms and isolated lodgings. However, even in these refuges they suffer from the feeling of menace; they expect something awful might happen to destroy their peace. This feeling of fear and anxiety is the basic element in Pinter's early plays of the absurd. It is in fact the psychological case of the contemporary man in the west who suffers the threat of the unknown danger. Pinter's early plays can be considered as tragi-comedies; though they are labeled as "comedies of menace." In these plays laughter is mingled with the tension of fear and pity. It is man's real situation in life which is a combination of a laugh and a frown; happiness and sorrow. R. D. Smith (Brown et al:1962 :132) argues that the characters of both Pinter and Beckett represent man's anguish and suffering. They really represent us in this dreadful age of doubt, uncertainty and confusion: Beckett's characters remain at their darkest moments anguished human beings: Beckett, when intellectually at his most pitiless, feels and suffers with them. Pinter's characters talk our daily language and engage our compassion: their plight could be our plight.

101 Pinter's drama reveals menace also through the difficulty of communication: through the heavy struggling of the character to express himself; or to be able to arrange his thoughts. Martin Esslin (1977:51-52) interprets this case of difficulty of communication as the simplest aspect of fear in Pinter's tragi-comedy; while the real menace, he thinks, springs from behind this difficulty of expression. It is: The real menace which lies behind the struggles for expression and communication, behind the closed doors which might swing open to reveal a frightening intruder, behind the sinister gunmen and terrorists, behind the violence, the menace behind all these menacing images is the opaqueness, the uncertainty andprecariousness of the human condition itself. It is the problem of the existentialist whose life is meaningless and purposeless; who searches for answers to his enigmatic questions. The questions that Pinter might ask, as Esslin (1977:52) puts them: How can we know who we are, how can we verify what is real and what fantasy is, how we can know what we are saying, what is being said to usT Every thing for the existentialist seems obscure and uncertain. It is an opaque existence and an ambiguous life. More than forty years ago, Pinter addressed students at the National Student Drama Festival in Bristol in 1962, saying that (Pinter: 1976:11):

102 / suggest there can be no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false. But in his "Nobel Lecture" entitled "Art, Truth & Politics" "December 7,2005; Pinter asserts this idea from the point of view of a dramatist; but as a citizen he believes that he has to know what is true and what is false. / believe that these assertions still, make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false? Pinter's attitude in his early dramatic works is that of an existentialist; where the question of man's existence preoccupies his mind. In his early plays he treats man's fear in this insecure world. It is man's existential fear in western societies where everything reveals and signifies it. Harold Pinter, who was considered in the sixties the leading playwright of the British Theatre of the Absurd, was in fact the poet of his confused and bewildered generation of the post-World War the Second. He is the poet (Esslin: 1977:52): Who sees the world as mysterious, multifaceted and unfathomable. Such a poet can merely follow the outlines of his vision; his working method will have to be highly intuitive.

103 Pinter's drama could be compared to the comedy of ideas of George Bernard Shaw; and the drama of other European writers like Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertolt Brecht.

2.4.3 Pinter's Political Drama Pinter who claimed early in the 1950s that he was never interested in politics, nor his plays were political in content; seems now more political in his drama and in life activities. Karwowski (2003: http://\vww.find_articies.com) describes Pinter's new political tendency as follows: In recent times, Pinter's celebrity has depended more on his politics than on his plays. The master of the dramatic pause now seems more of a rebel without a pause, taking almost every opportunity to make moral pronouncements on current affairs. In his "Nobel Lecture", Pinter fuses literature with politics to assert the moral mission of literature and of the men of letters. An g Arab writer and the translator of this lecture comments that this lecture (Ashoor :2006:60-63): Is distinguished by a special type of rhetoric Here is the rhetoric of bravery and confrontation, in a moment that the writer realizing what risks threaten humankind, gives priority to speak not about his plays, his style of writing or his private experiences, and not about his acquired expertise's throughout his seventy- five years old. He chose to record a political

104 attitude that has its significance from the writer's stature, the moment of the award and the forum through which the speech is said". Since the overthrown of president Allende in 1973 by General Pinochet; Pinter became an active human rights advocate. In an interview with Anne-Marie Cusac, the Managing Editor of The Progressive (2002:http://w\v\v.abc.net.au) Pinter announced that he was greatly jolted by that inhumane and undemocratic act: / really did have a great Jolt in 1973 when Pinochet coup over threw Allende. It really knocked me, as they say, for six. I was appalled and disgusted by it. And I know how the CIA and US were behind the whole damn thing. And of course now, surprise, surprise, the documents come out confirming this. However, Pinter's political criticism is not attributed to ideological but to moral grounds as Karwowski states: Indeed, Pinter has made it clear that his many attacks on US and British foreign policy is not on ideological, but purely on moral grounds. Even his dramatic works of the 1980s and 1990s of the twentieth century are extremely political. In his Mountain Language (1988) for instance, Pinter treats the theme of political and racial oppression very expressly. His political satire is expressed very bitterly in this play to show how brutality is practiced in the name of democracy and human rights. The play as Pinter himself puts it (2005:3):

105 Remains brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get some fun out of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become easily bored. They need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up. This has been confirmed of course by the events at Abu Graib in Baghdad". The New World Order (1991) is a short satiric response of the Gulf War in a ten minute play. The title, in itself, is plainly taken from the speeches of the US president George Bush. Pinter admitted (Cusac:2002) in the last few years that some of his early "comedies of menace" such as The Birthday Party and The Dumb Waiter - but not The Caretaker - are really political plays; though he ignored deliberately to mention this fact at his early literary career. They were political. I was aware that they were political too. But at that time, at whatever age I was — in my twenties - / was pretty independent young man, and I didn 't want to get up on a soap box. I wanted to let the plays speak for themselves, and if people didn't get it, to hell with it. It is Pinter's dramatic talent and skillfiil stagecraft; as well as his daring genuine ideas that put him at the forefront among his leading contemporaries in Britain and abroad. On 13 October 2005, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy (Svenska Akademien) in its Press Release announced that Nobel Prize in literature had been awarded to the British dramatist Harold Pinter:

106 Who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression 's closed room. The Swedish Academy described Pinter as: The foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20" century. That he occupies a position as a modern classic is illustrated by his name entering the language as an adjective used to describe a particular atmosphere and environment in drama: 'Pintersque'.

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