30 pages • 1 hour read
John OsborneLook Back in Anger
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1957A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Ironing/Ironing Board
The iron/ironing board motif is seen several times in the play. It represents the womanly roles of Alison and Helena. The motif suggests that a woman’s work is never done, as both Alison and Helena are constantly ironing while Jimmy is constantly asking them if they are done yet. The motif also highlights the roles women play in their own households, which limit their actions to cleaning and looking after the men in their lives. Jimmy knocks over the iron/ironing board several times, suggesting both sexism (in that he is “knocking down” one of the only agency roles that women are given) and a desire to change the role of women. It is suggested that Jimmy wants Alison to be a free thinker, and this could include not always being the submissive woman. In this case, the iron/ironing board is also symbolic of identity crisis.
Bear
The bear toy in the attic flat represents Jimmy. He and Alison play a game where he is the loud, reckless bear and she is the timid squirrel. Jimmy later highlights his role as a bear when he mentions that bears are solitary, misunderstood creatures who have no friends. They do not have the advantage of packs or prides. They can be dangerous when cornered or attacked. These attributes mirror Jimmy’s own crude characteristics throughout the play.
Squirrel
The squirrel is the character that Alison adopts when she and Jimmy play their game. Squirrels are timid and often mistrustful. Jimmy says they make poor choices. Alison’s actions in the play suggest that she is a squirrel in that she comes off as timid from the start and needs Jimmy’s guidance to ensure she survives.
Newspapers
The Sunday papers that Jimmy and Cliff always read symbolize both the outside world and the world that the working class can only read about but never be involved in. Jimmy constantly rails against the middle class and the world at large for being lazy and passive. He reads about what is happening in England and other places through the newspapers, an act that always angers him because as much as he can read and have an opinion and want to change things, he can never be privy to a role that might affect change. Newspapers are a symbolic display of power in that they allow Jimmy to learn about the world but keep him at a distance and remind him he has no real power in the larger world.
Jimmy’s Shirts
Both Alison and Helena wear Jimmy’s shirts at one point or other in the play. By both women wearing his shirt, the play suggests that the women, who are part of the middle class by birth, are donning the vestiges of the working class. And yet these vestiges can easily be removed. They are Jimmy’s shirts, meaning he “owns” his role as a working-class man. Interestingly, both Alison and Helena launder clothing for Cliff as well, again suggesting that they encounter elements of the working class, and can even adopt them, but can easily give them back when need be.
