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Author
Structure
Characters
Themes
Quotes
John Osborne (1929-1994)
Structure
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Circular structure
Same place
Same time
Language
Characters
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Jimmy Porter
Cliff Lewis
Alison Porter
Helena Charles
Colonel Redfern
Themes
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Struggling against Institutions
Alienation&Isolation&Loneliness
Identity Crisis
Anger& Hatred
Apathy&Passivity
Class Conflict
Masculinity/Emotionally abused relationship
Loss of Childhood
Quotes
• "People like me don't get fat. I've tried to tell you before. We just burn everything up."
• "If you could have a child, and it would die...if only I could watch you face that.”
• "Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm.
Just enthusiasm -- that's all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah!...Hallelujah! I'm alive!"
• "If you've no world of your own, it's rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else's. I must be getting sentimental. But I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age -- unless you're an
American of course."
• "It's what he would call a question of allegiances, and he expects you to be pretty literal about them. Not only about himself and all the things he believes in, his present and his future, but his past as well."
• "Jimmy went into battle with his axe swinging round his head
-- frail, and so full of fire. I had never seen anything like it. The old story of the knight in shining armour (sic) -- except that his armour didn't really shine very much."
• "One day, when I'm not longer spending my days running a sweet-stall, I may write a book about us all. ...It'll be recollected in fire, and blood. My blood."
• "Why, why, why, why do we let these women bleed us to death?" • "I suppose people of our generation aren't able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us, in the thirties and the forties, when we were still kids. ...There aren't any good, brave causes left."
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