Still Looking Back: The Deconstruction of the Angry Young Man in Look Back in Anger and Déjàvu

Still Looking Back: The Deconstruction of the Angry Young Man in Look Back in Anger and Dejavu GRAHAM A. nIXON To "deconstruct" would be to think - in the most faithful interior way - in the concepts of a discipline, but at the same time to determine - from a certain exterior that is unqualifiable or unnameable by (that discipline) - what ... it has been able to dissimulate or forbid. I Why don't you shut up? My mother liked the play. Both my grandmothers are alive. One saw it on television. I think she liked it.2 Next time he will let us know what he is angry about ... Pretty dejavu. I'd say. You're still a cunt.3 Robert Egan locates the cause of Jimmy Porter's powerlessness in "the nature of the histrionic impulse,"4 offering an alternative to John Russell Taylor's traditional assertion that his impotence lies in "the deficiencies of the modern world."5 I suggest a third alternative: Jimmy Porter, and through him, the playwright John Osborne, deconstructs both his interior and exterior worlds. In Look Back in Anger Osborne places Porter outside the world and yet within it. Porter sees the limitations of playing a "normal," active role in the world and launches vicious but essentially ineffective attacks upon this world from his ironically passive position as sweet-seller. The paradoxical mixture of verbal power and practical impotence has troubled critics since the play's inception ; but the recent appearance of Dejavu offers a unique opportunity to consider questions of Jimmy's powerlessness in the mirror of what Osborne has called Look Back /I. As Jimmy Porter deconstructs the role he sets for himself, and as Osborne deconstructs the whole play, so Dejavu casts an ironic light upon and, perhaps, deconstructs the whole mythos of the Angry Young Man that the Osbome/porter amalgam first provoked. While Look Back in Anger is no longer regarded as an utterly revolutionary Modern Drama, 37 (1994) 521 522 GRAHAM A. DIXON and epoch-making play, one of the most common initial reactions has remained stubbornly alive: the vision of Jimmy Porter as the quintessential Angry Young Man. As a review of the original production suggests, "you are expected to believe that two women love this volcano of ceaseless, sputtering venom ... you believe it, the truth about this conscienceless sadist is that he is absolutely alive!',6 But "alive" in what sense? Ironically, Jimmy is most effective within his world, and thus most "alive" in an active sense, not during his well-rehearsed tirades against Mother, Brother Nigel, or Pusillanimous, but rather in the quieter moments when his Anger is replaced by vulnerability. Consider the scene after the accidental burning: JIMMY How's it feeling? ALISON Fine. It'wasn't anything. JIMMY All this fooling about can get a bit dangerous. He sits on the edge 0/the table, holding her hand. I'm sorry. ALISON I know. JIMMY I mean it. ALISON There's no need. The scene continues: JIMMY ... Trouble is - Trouble is you get used to people. Even their trivialities become indispensable to you. Indispensable, and a little mysterious. He slide$ his head/orward, against her, trying to catch his thoughts. I think ... I must have a lot of - old stock ... Nobody wants it. ... He puts his/ace against her belly. She goes on stroking his head, still on guard a little . Then he lifts his headl and they kiss passionately. What are we going to do tonight?7 Jimmy deconstructs his previous Anger in a number of ways in such scenes. Jimmy Porter the "real" man provides a contrast to his previous performative self. At these moments he illustrates what he has been able to dissimulate and forbid through his performative discipline. In his tirades he dissimulates the "strength" of the Angry Young Man while forbidding the conclusions of his actual weakness. On a verbal level, the very simplicity, brevity, and hesitancy of his language strongly contrast with the pompous eloquence of his set-piece attacks. Jimmy is not attacking outside targets here, he is considering inner sensibilities: matters which cannot be easily defined and vilified but which remain "mysterious." His verbal vulnerability is mirrored...