I am
going to do a comparative study between “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett,
and “Look Back In Anger” by John
Osborne.
The
plays I am going to speak about, are in the theatrical and literary current
that appeared after the second world war. These plays, have been written in the
postwar period, for this reason, they are plays full of pessimism.
First, I will make a distinction between the acts of
the above mentioned plays. In “Waiting for Godot”, we can see two acts which
represent the two days in which the characters are waiting for Godot. On the
contrary, in “Look Back in Anger”, there is one more act.
If we speak about the characters of the plays, I
will say that two plays containe the same number of them. They are composed by
5 characters. In case of Beckett’s play, we can see two principal characters:
Vladimir and Estragon, and three secondary characters called: Lucky, Pozzo and
The Boy.
In the case of Look Back in Anger, the characters
are: Alison Porter, Jimmy Porter (her husband), Cliff Lewis (a friend) Helena (
a friend of Alison) and Coronel Redfern (father of Alison). The most important
similar I see between the characters is between Lucky (Waiting for Godot) and
Helena and Alison (Look Back in Anger). In the play of Beckett we see that
Lucky is a submitted character to his owner Pozzo. He obeys him at all time,
and he supports his insults (Pozzo to Lucky: " will you look at me, pig!
"). Also, Helena and Alison support insults from Jimmy ( Jimmy to Alison:
“stupid bitch”). And both are women whitout personality.
To continue, I will speak of the time and the space
of these plays. About time, I will say that plays both are written in present.
Also, they have a good cohesion and a temporary order. About space, I will say
that the plays pass in only one place. The history of Waiting for Godot, it
happens in a kind of piece of open land where we can see a tree and a way.
However is in an attic of an apartment where the history of Look Back in Anger
passes.
Another similar characteristic between these two
plays are the dialogues.
We can see that the dialogue it is in both plays.
Continuing with our work, I will speak now about the
linguistic register. We see that the most predominant register is the
colloquial, vulgar, familiar…
In spite of the fact that both plays are very
similar, I can say that they are based in two different plots. Beckett have
based his play on a philosophical reflection of the life. In his history the
characters try to give sense to
their lifes. His end is very normal although it makes people think..
Nevertheless John Osborne narrates a different history with a surprising final.
To sum up, it is necessary to emphasize that the
plays show the reality of the life due to the historical moment in which their
authors lived. The plays reflect the monotony, the rebelliousness, the
injustice, the insecurity..
To put on end to this work I will say that Waiting for Godot and Look Back in Anger were very important plays. And Samuel Beckett and John Osborne, introduced revolutionary aspects in the British scene of the century XX