Despair and Depression in John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger

This paper addresses the issue of despair and depression in John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger. The play describes the life of the young intellectual Jimmy Porter who suffers from low self-esteem and depression as a result of marrying above his social status and the solitude that he lives after the death of his father. Jimmy struggles hard to assert himself through directing his rage at his upper class wife, who marries him against the wishes of her family, and therefore suffers from stressful life that develops into depression that negatively affects his social life and behavior. He considers himself as a spokesman for the suffering workers who inhabit a bleak world and live a meaningless life as a result of the strict hierarchical British society that does not recognize their existence. At the end of the play, Jimmy succeeds in teaching his wife, Alison, what real suffering is and what it means to be lonely and helpless after losing her baby, and they both attempt to cope with their anxieties and feelings of despair through playing the bear and squirrel game.