It is difficult not to see Osborne's work as a pioneering
venture in bringing the characterization of "the Angry Young Man" to a wider audience.
When it was first seen on stage, critics might have vented their own anger towards the
work, but few could deny that Jimmy was the embodiment of the "angry young man" that was
present throughout England. The drama showed the realistic state of being where
resentment at the Status Quo and frustration percolated with every breath in such a
stark manner. This became one of the reasons why the critics understood how drama would
become so associated with the "Angry Young Man"
archetype:
I agree that Look Back in
Anger is likely to remain a minority taste. What matters, however, is the
size of the minority. I estimate it at roughly 6,733,000, which is the number of people
in this country between the ages of twenty and thirty. And this figure will doubtless be
swelled by refugees from other age-groups who are curious to know precisely what the
contemporary young pup is thinking and
feeling.
The drama
was instrumental in bringing this archetype from the subterranean into the open.
People were forced to recognize Jimmy was representative
of a chunk of the world that they inhabited. He could not be seen as an anomaly or
something that failed to exist. Jimmy's condition of anger became an experience that
many recognized either existed in their lives or in their world: "You see, I learnt at
an early age what it was to be angry—angry and helpless. And I can never forget it.''
The condition of helplessness and anger, frustration at being told that power exists
when it actually is absent, is where the drama is where it reveals the archetype in the
most illuminating of terms. Osborne's work has to be seen as a pioneering venture
because of this. It does not relent in seeking to capture what reality is, depicting it
in a manner that force one to look at what is there.
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