Alison tells Helena about her first months with Jimmy. The second act begins with Helena and Alison sharing the womanly duties of the home while Jimmy plays his trumpet off stage. He says he wishes that Alison would have a baby that would die so that she could experience true suffering. When Alison says that Helena wants to stay with them, Jimmy explodes. Then Cliff returns and says that Helena Charles, one of Alison’s upper class friends, is on the phone. They play their “ bear and squirrel” game, which allows them to escape into affection while pretending to be animals. Soon after, Cliff leaves to get some cigarettes, and Alison and Jimmy share a tender moment. Jimmy enters while they are kissing, but doesn’t acknowledge or object (the three live in a non-traditional set-up that would have been shocking to audiences at the time). Cliff comforts Alison, and tells her that Jimmy loves her. She hasn’t told Jimmy yet, because she is afraid that he’ll feel trapped and angry.
Jimmy apologizes, but she yells at him to leave, and he exits.Ĭliff helps Alison treat the burn, and she reveals to him that she is pregnant with Jimmy’s child. The two fall against Alison’s ironing board, and she burns her arm. Cliff, attempting to cheer Jimmy up, begins to banter and roughhouse with his friend. Jimmy’s attempts to shock his wife into some display of emotion escalate as the act progresses-he insults her family and complains that all women are out to destroy men. He also seems to have some nostalgia for a past age in Britain when the country had more power. The play’s first act largely consists of Jimmy’s angry tirades against upper class complacency and his wife’s lack of “enthusiasm.” Jimmy thinks that suffering is the only way to experience true human emotion, and that Alison and other upper class people are therefore less “alive” than he is. Alison irons clothes while Cliff and Jimmy read the newspaper. The scene opens on a Sunday morning in the apartment.
The couple lives with Cliff Lewis, an affable working class man and Jimmy’s longtime friend. Jimmy comes from a working class background, though he is highly educated. Alison comes from a traditional upper class background. Look Back in Anger follows a young husband and wife, Alison and Jimmy Porter, as they attempt to navigate class conflict and deal with a deteriorating marriage in 1950s England.
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