First paper: Arnold Wesker and John Osborne in comparision and contrast
The topic of my work is the influence of the playwright’s context in their plays and how it is reflected.
The Second World War had finish recently. It caused a lot of changes, in the society, in the culture and people also changed obviously since the wars impact emotionally almost everyone.
More or less it is the principal element that is going to provoke a new theatrical tendency, which the playwrights approach. As I told before, it is not the war; it is all changes and problems that it supposes an influence at them. It is what they show in their plays. But how did they do it? It is reflected specially in the character’s personality, although it was not quite easy because the society was full of restrictions and they had to do it in a resourceful manner.
In Look back in anger, John Osborne, shows the life of a couple and their problems. Jimmy and Alison live together. Jimmy in this play have the role of an “old” man, in other words, he behaves like man who thinks of women as inferior, pgs 9, 10…While his wife is ironing, he was with his friend, Cliff, reading the newspapers and smoking a cigarette. He is distrustful since he doubts about his wife’s virginity, pg 30. Alison is a typical woman, she does the housework. When she is pregnant she feels fear, she does not know if she is going to tell his husband or not, pgs 30,…. Instead with other people like Cliff or Helena, she is confident, pgs 30. She was not happy with her husband although she was faithful. But with his husband happens differently. When she goes back to her parent’s home, he lives with their friend, Helena. However at last all returns to its place, Alison and Jimmy come back and continue with the same life.
In the kitchen, Arnold Wesker shows how are the worker’s life in a restaurant, Tivoli. The workers are of different nationalities. They have a tiring life, they have to do everything that is done in a restaurant, cooking, washing dishes, cleaning everything… although they have a short time to speak with each other and they also establish relationships. Peter is the main character, he is a dreamer, he does not want to work in this restaurant, he wants give up, still in one moment of anger he hits his partner’s work. As Peter almost all characters are also dreamer since everyone dreams with one or another thing, for example, Raymond want to stay with a different woman each night, Hans want to be a millionaire… However nobody does anything to change their lifes, they stay the same.
To summarize Osborne in his play pays specific attention to a couple’s life, how it was, the problems that they have. The playwright is an implied manner shows how the society was, that is to say, he reflects how men were, how women were, men only worked at home they didn’t do anything, women had to work all day at home, they respected their husbands, but their husbands could do what they wanted, whereas Wesker shows how the relations were between boss and workers, how much time the workers worked, which were their dreams and aspirations, all work that the had to do, which were their feelings. Both share the new theatrical tendency, and both speak about society implicitly, but on the other hand, their focus is really different and they want to pass on different values too. Nevertheless, although they reflect their context on the same way, they talks about different topics in their plays, such as John talk about a couple’s life and Wesker talks about how the relations were between boss and workers and also how were the work’s conditions.