13.

Look Back in Anger and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner as a
comment on the mid-20th-century Britain.

A) Look Back in Anger by John Osborne (1956)

• John Osborne (1929) writes until today but so far he hasn’t managed to repeat the
success of Look Back in Anger;
• the 1st performance in Britain was given at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square,
London, on 8th May 1956 by the English Stage Company; it was directed by Tony
Richardson;
• Look Back in Anger was a turning-point in the history of the English theatre – it gave
the English theatre a new sense of actuality and purpose;
• the plot
- the three-act play takes place in a one-bedroom flat in the Midlands; Jimmy Porter,
lower middle-class, university-educated man, lives with his wife Alison, the daughter
of a retired Colonel in the British Army in India; his friend Cliff Lewis, who helps
Jimmy run a sweet stall, lives with them; Jimmy, who is intellectually restless, reads a
lot of newspapers and argues with Alison and Cliff about their acceptance of the world
around them; he rages to the point of violence, reserving much of his bile (anger and
hatred) for Alison's friends and family; when Helena, an actress friend of Alison's
from school, arrives, she is appalled at Jimmy’s behaviour; thus, she calls Alison's
father to take her away from the flat; he arrives while Jimmy is visiting the mother of a
friend and takes Alison away; as soon as her friend has gone, Helena moves in with
Jimmy; after some time, Alison visits them, having lost Jimmy's baby; it turns out that
Helena can no longer stand living with Jimmy and leaves; finally, Alison returns to her
husband;
• Look Back in Anger is the answer to political, economic and social situation in
England in the 1950s: after the WWII the Labour Government promised a lot of things
to the English society, such as, e.g. education for the people from lower classes
(indeed some schools, universities etc. were then opened); In general, the Labour
Government wanted to make the English people a better society and England a better
country; it also promised some economic development; some years have passed,
however, and it turned out that the economic situation of England left a lot to be
desired, e.g. it was difficult to find a job (although Jimmy is educated he works in a
sweet shop); people were frustrated; moreover, upper classes were reluctant to accept
the people from lower classes – so there was still a visible, social division into the
better and the worse part of the society; such difficult situation in the country often
influenced personal relationships – aggression, vandalism, alcoholism, the abuse of
family members were frequent; people simply didn’t listen to each other;
• “Angry Young Man”
- a group of independent young novelists and dramatists who reflected the mood of
most of the postwar generation;
- they were frustrated and dissatisfied with contemporary society and its ideals;
- they saw the shallowness and falseness of the Victorian values which were still
governing principles of state and society;
- they felt committed to the great outstanding problems of their period like, e.g.
H-Bomb (hydrogen bomb) and Apartheid;
- they claimed that the typical English theatre was far removed from contemporary life
and, therefore, it didn’t reflect the lives of people in the middle of the 20th century;
• characteristic features of contemporary plays:
- the setting is provincial (not London);

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- the origin of a main character – working class or lower classes;
- the protagonist is alienated, nobody understands him;
- he appears to be rootless;
- the protagonist is the embodiment of “Angry Young Man” – disapproval of the
authorities; inner rebellion;
- usually intelligent, witty, sarcastic, he has bitter humour, may cause pain to other
people;
B) Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe (1959)
• Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a set of memories written in 1st p. sing.;
• the plot
- the story is about Smith, a teenager who he is caught for robbing a bakery and, in
consequence, put into a Borstal (a prison school) for delinquent youth; there, he seeks
comfort in long-distance running, attracting the notice of Borstal’s governor; during an
important cross-country race, however, he stops running near the finish line and lets a
boy from another school to win the competition in order to defy (i.e. to refuse to obey)
the authorities;
• the major character – Smith – is an ordinary person; the name may apply to everyone
(just like Kowalski); we may identify with him;
• Smith comes from working class – he’s another embodiment of “Angry Young Man”
(just like Jimmy Porter from Look Back in Anger – the only difference is the fact that
Jimmy is an educated and a law-abiding person);
• Smith is the protagonist (the main character in the story) not the hero; the word
protagonist doesn’t tell anything about the set of values; this new term appeared in the
20th century; Smith is an anti-hero or anarchic hero: in literature it is someone who is,
e.g. a loser, juvenile delinquent, next-door neighbour and someone from the lower
classes who uses colloquial lg - generally not a model to follow;
• the themes:
- in the story Smith elaborates his theory of “them” (the law-abiding property-owning
majority – represented by the authorities and embodied in the person of the Borstal’s
governor) and “us” (the substantial minority who has no stake in the system (i.e. it gets
no advantages from it) – represented by the boys who, in turn, represent “Angry
Young Man” and embodied in the person of Smith; at the beginning of the story Smith
declares his pessimism concerning this division when he says that it is not that “them”
and “us” don't “see eye to eye” but that “that's how it stands and how it will always
stand” - the pessimism is not connected with the existence of the two classes but with
Smith’s belief that this can never change;
• Smith's one great talent - his ability to run quickly over long distances - is both a
symbol of the struggle (as it persists throughout his life) and also the means by which
he hopes to disappoint and deceive the governor; thus, he trains hard and appears to be
eager to win the Blue Ribbon Prize Cup (which he can do if he wishes); in fact,
however, Smith believes that to win the race would be to accept the values represented
by the governor; to lose the race, in turn, is the only way Smith can retain his
independence and his set of values (e.g. loyalty, faithfulness, partnership,
nonconformism, nonhypocrisy);
• the question of honesty: for the governor honesty is obeying the law (e.g. the respect
for others' property) and winning the competition; Smith takes honesty to mean being
true to one's principles and to be on the side of boys;
• the policeman who catches Smith says “we” instead of “I”, unconsciously identifying
himself with the oppressive majority whom he represents; the policemen are especially
despised by Smith because although they originate from the working class, they

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 sustain the ruling classes in power; for Smith those in power are merely selfish but
those who keep them in power have betrayed their own kind; later on, however,
somewhat contradictorily, Smith shows respect for the policeman's honesty in not
pretending to be sorry while announcing Smith’s mother that her son has committed
crime;
• after Borstal Smith knows that he can rely only on himself; he has to plan everything;
even if he has a lot of money, he knows that he has to be economical
(the experience with his mother learned him that); he is a self-taught person and he is
interested in self-development; he wants to become better and better, therefore, Smith
is a worthy person with wasted talent and potential – the society gave him nothing;