We are going to compare two authors: John Osborne, who wrote “Look Back in Anger”

and Samuel Beckett, who wrote “Waiting for Godot”. These plays were written in an

after-war period.

John Osborne is a British playright and scriptwriter. His greats play is “Look Back in

Anger” (1956). The reviews about the play differed widely and it had a big commercial

impact. It was performed in the “West End” and “Broadway” and, after that, in the

cinema.

“Look Back in Anger” relates Jimmy’s life. Jimmy hates his daily routine. He is a strict

and selfish person and he wants everybody does what he says. He mistreats his wife

psychologically. Alison is pregnant but she is afraid of saying it to Jimmy because she

does not know the way in which Jimmy will react.

Helena is an Alison’s friend but Helena and Jimmy do not get on well, although at the

end they will live together. Coronel Redfen visits Alison and she decides to live

together with him. Then, Helena decides to live with Jimmy, however, Alison has a

miscarriage and comes back to Jimmy.

The time of the play is the present but really, it was written after the Second World War.

Osborne does not play with the time of the actions that happen in the play. He does not

use flashbacks.

The play has got three acts. The author uses a simple and colloquial language,

sometimes it is difficult to understand the world that Jimmy says, for instance: “you’re

just a peasant” (Jimmy, page 11).

We not only find bad words or colloquial expressions but only elements of hypocrisy.

Maybe, he is considered a hypocrisy man because he does not worry about anything.

The author wants to highlight that people after the War were passive and they did not do

anything to solve the situation they were living in.

Samuel Beckett is a great literary genius. He was known as a playwright. His most

famous play is “Waiting for Godot” (1952), with which the Irish writer established the

genre that is the Theatre of the Absurd. This style reflects the isolation and the anguish

of the individual, the pessimism and the loneliness of the life with and irrational

elements that broke with previous literary tradition.

This play tells us that Estragon and Vladimir are in an open ground, near a tree. They

are waiting for Godot. However, Estragon and Vladimir do not know Godot, they

do not know if Godot exists or not if Godot is a person or an animal. Vladimir and

Estragon do not know why they have to meet Godot. When the time passes, Estragon

and Vladimir get bored because they speak about absurd things. Then, Pozzo and Lucky

appear, Lucky speaks for a short time but when he speaks only talks nonsense. Finally,

a boy appears to say to Estragon and Vladimir, that Godot will come the following day,

but it is not true.

The best of Beckett’s achievements was his use of language. He looked for new

alternatives to express his concept of the world and his way of perceiving it.

The play is divided into two acts. The stories which occur in the second one are similar

to those that occur in the first one. So, we can say that the same stories happen again

and again.

This play is easy to read and to understand; it has got many short sentences, but we can

find a lot of vulgar expressions like: “this bitch of an earth” (Pozzo, page 38).

This play belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd, for this reason we can state that it has

not meaning.