Look Back in Anger

Look Back in Anger, John Osborne?s first and best-known play, revolutionised the British theatre when it was staged on May 8, 1956. Here Osborne (1929-94) successfully captured the wood of despair, anger and frustration of the post-war generation that per pertuated the Angry young man movement. It marked the emergence of Jimmy Porter as the spokesman of his generation and unleashed a kind of animal energy and brought the natural idiom of city speech of the working class people on the stage. The play has been interpreted differently by several critics. The purpose of the present critical study is to examine and anlyse the text, assess its relevance and explore the various layers of meaning so as to make it more accessible to students in our universities.