Wednesday, January 15, 1958 THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE Page Nine -L Wednesday January 15, 1958 THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE Paae Nine II~_____________________________ 'Look Back In Anger' Poses a Problem For an Age to Solve i (Contlnued from Pner out of the lines of a play and the performance and its actors, it is too often satisfied, f00K BACK IN ANGER bless- ~ edly does not follow this pat, tern. Jimihy Porter is definitely not average and not ordinary. The trouble with "the guy we all know" is just that; we all know what he has to say, and listening to him say it over again detracts just that much time from discovering some- thing we don't know about people+ by meeting a guy we don't know.+ Jimmy Porter is not so unfamiliar that he is unrecognizable, but he has one characteristic that differ- entiates him from the lowest com- mon denominator; he is intrinsi- cally interesting. He is a man with1 some ideas. This does not prevent the play from being realistic. It-is created very much within the tra- ditions of realism, but John Os-t borne stands {among'the ranks of the rare few who have grasped the idea that reality has an essence which is very extraordinary, that+ it is refined and pure at its core and that the deepest truth of1 reality often lies in fantasy. One of the devices employed by Mr. Osborne is arriving at this "essence of reality" by means ofC the almost exclusive use of mono- logue. The play is very much a didactic one and, while it does not appear that the Bard stands in serious danger of being superseded, these monologues often have a Shakespearean quality which af- fects the total construct of the play, serving some of the same functions, dramatically, as Shake- speare's soliloquies. The language, which ranges from the rude and crude to the utterly fantastic, is often reminiscent of Shakespeare's diction. Alison and Jimmy, for example, have a game of bears and squirrels that they play and, in the moment of their greatest des- peration, when they have put aside this game, Alison commiserates: "Poor bear" and continues at length about a lonely bear wandering through the forest. The concept and diction are strongly reminiscent of the "Poor bare forked animal" speech in King Lear. These are the embellishments and riches of the play, but there is. too, a very meaningful and even painful reality. Its essence lies in the question being put by at least twenty critics, "What are they angry about?" At this point it becomes necessary to take up the albatrosses tossed in the way by various critics. MOST of the English critics are agreed that it is chiefly a mat- ter of class conflict. Jimmy is angry that, just because of the class structure, his opportunities are limited. He is angry with Ai- son for being from the upper class. If this is the literal message of the play, it can have very little direct bearing on Contemporary America. Judging from the actual text of the play, this is not precisely the case. Colonel Redfern, Alison's father, is angry too. There is a sort of class distinction created by the mmeories of different genera- tions. These memories become, in themselves, an additional barrier, and this is international. For just as Jimmy, as envisioned by All- son, is: "So alone and helpless" So Colonel Redfern at his daugh- ter's wedding is described by Port- er himself as being: "tinable to believe that he'd left his riding whip at home." They have each had their single great moments and they are over. Colonel Redfern's days in India are an old man's past, and Jimmy Porter's friendship with Hugh Tanner is ended. r'sHE SECOND theory being cur- rently advanced about the Miss Silverman, from Syra- cuse, New York, is a senir majoring in English. This is her first appearance in the Magazine. play, particularly by A r t h u r Schlesinger Jr. in the New Re- public is that Jimmy Porter is angry with women, in general; angry with himself for being mar- ried. He is, but ever so latently, a homosexual. To view the play in this way is to commit as grave a critical sin as it is to call Othello a play about miscegenation or The Merchant of Venice a play about antisemitism. To calf. Jimmy Port- er a latent homosexual is to miss the point that Jimmy Porter is effete, but his effeteness is the disease of his age. This entire facet of the problem is neatly summarised in Jimmy's own words: "There are no causes." This is not only Jimmy Porter's problem, it was the problem of the "lost generation" and now of the bop generation. It is largely the problem of the realists. At a loss for a cause, a raison d'etre, Jimmy Porter. and those authors who write about him make their raison d'etre the search for -a cause. Unable to believe in the dignity of this generation, its re- presentatives settle upon degrada- tion as the zenith or nadir of existence. This is Jimmy's solu- tion and justification for final depravity and absolute degrada- tion. i i Your Discontinued Textbooks are worth real money! if sold to Ulrich's WITH your currently good ones. YOUR BEST DEAL-FIGURE IT OUT Ulrich's sell your discontinued books to over 600 college bookstores. This way we get the highest possible prices for YOU. At least 25% of the books used this semester are now obso- lete or discontinued. another Ulrich service - f t vavaa t I i I I, i I I-HOP-FEB. 4th TUXEDO .y AterSxA TUX SH I RTS . . . . CUMMERBUND AND TIESETS-- STUDS AND LINKS 5.95 4 95 3.50 .A. .. COMPLETE FORMAL RENTAL SERVICE TICK & WREN Co eJorIn 1107 SOUTH UNIVERSITY