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.
Act IIChapter Summaries & Analyses
Act II, Scene 1 Summary
The scene is set two week later, in the evening. Helena is now staying at the flat. Helena and Alison are preparing dinner, and getting ready to go to church afterwards, while Jimmy is practicing his trumpet in another room. The two women discuss Helena’s obvious dislike of Jimmy, and her confusion at Alison having married him. Alison explains how they ended up getting married, and how Jimmy’s old friend Hugh, whose mother bought the sweet stall for him, is now another friend that Jimmy despises. Hugh and Jimmy would take advantage of Alison’s position in society by inviting themselves to parties because of her name and social standing. They hated the middle class, but would take advantage of the free food, booze and cigarettes. They often made themselves unwelcome, but the middle class was too rigid in its beliefs and customs to just kick them out and make a scene. Hugh wanted to move and take up the struggle elsewhere, but Jimmy was with Alison and did not want to leave. Hugh eventually left on his own. Alison notes that Hugh’s mother seems to still blame her for Hugh’s leaving.
Alison and Helena talk about how Alison is now cut off from the people and the society that she has known her entire life. She also has yet to tell Jimmy about her pregnancy. While Helena is preparing dinner she yells at Jimmy to stop making so much noise playing jazz on his trumpet. He pauses momentarily but then continues to play. He is obviously making noise on purpose to annoy them. Cliff finally enters, and Alison calls Jimmy to supper. The four sit down to a tense supper, and Jimmy begins his attacks on the middle class, as well as on Alison and Helena. This time, he wants to hurt Alison even more and begins talking crudely about her mother. He makes fun of her for being cruel and fat, and tries his best to get a response from Alison.
Jimmy then asks where the two are going for the evening and is angered anew at the fact that Alison is going to church with Helena. He accuses Helena of trying to win Alison back over to her side. He and Helena trade words and insults, while Cliff remains mostly quiet. At one point during supper, Helena is so upset that she threatens to slap Jimmy. Jimmy warns her that he is not above hitting a woman and that he will do so if Helena so much as thinks about slapping him. He then asks if she has ever seen someone dying. He goes into a tirade about remaining by his father’s bedside as he died. He learned about death and helplessness by watching is father die, which in turn taught him about being helpless and loathed in present society.
Jimmy receives a phone call, and the two women prepare to leave. Everyone is upset and tense. Helena tells Alison that she has sent a telegram to Alison’s parents and explained that she needs to go home to stay with them. When Jimmy reenters, he informs them that Hugh’s mother is sick. She has had a stroke and he is going to London to be with her. He attempts to get Alison to go with him, but Alison leaves for church with Helena, shocking him.
Act II, Scene 2 Summary
Alison’s father, Colonel Redfern, arrives the next evening to take her home. As Jimmy indicated earlier, Colonel Redfern spent his military career in India, from 1913 to 1947. He is at odds with the modern version of England, and is considered an Edwardian. The Colonel himself admits that his view of the world is crumbling and old-fashioned. As Alison packs the last of her belongings, he asks her about what has happened between her and Jimmy. He admits that he understands some of Jimmy’s point of view, which annoys Alison. (She alludes earlier in the play to the fact that Jimmy might respect her father, though he loathes her mother.) Colonel Redfern also admits that he was disgusted, like Jimmy, by his wife’s excessive attempts to stop the two from marrying one another. Mrs. Redfern hired detectives to follow Jimmy and to try to find fault in his everyday life. Colonel Redfern wanted to put a stop to it but his wife is strong-willed. He says that by contrast both he and Alison are comfortable, and like to “sit on the fence” when it comes to dealing with problems, or with others.
Alison attempts to explain why she married Jimmy in the first place. She talks about having lived a comfortable life where nothing was required of her. Then Jimmy shook up her world and she felt that, as a woman, she had to “fight back” and show him she could withstand his “spiritual barbarism.” But she could not continue with it, in the end. Jimmy was too explosive, and is too explosive, and now she must leave, to get some peace and figure things out.
Helena comes in, as well as Cliff. Helena informs them that she has received a possible role and will remain in the flat for another night to take care of business related to the role. Cliff tries talking to Alison again, but she is adamant about leaving. She gives him a letter to give to Jimmy, which angers Cliff. They embrace, intimately again, then she finally leaves with her father. Cliff gives Helena the letter and also leaves. He says he does not want to be around when Jimmy arrives.
Helena picks up a toy bear and lies on the bed. Jimmy enters, angry and upset, and it is revealed that he was almost run over by Colonel Redfern, and that he saw Alison in the passenger seat. He also saw Cliff leaving, even though Cliff had left the building another way in order to avoid Jimmy. Jimmy eventually reads the letter and begins hurling insults at Alison for being so calm and predictable. Helena tells him that Alison is pregnant. Though he is momentarily shocked, he even attacks this new information, saying that he will not give in to emotions for the sake of a child. He reveals that Hugh’s mother has died, and that he has no pity for Alison or her plight. Helena is so angry that she slaps Jimmy. He holds his face and begins crying desperately, and then Helena kisses him passionately.
Act II Analysis
Jimmy’s tirade against the middle class continues, this time with him striking out against Helena, Alison’s friend. The two do not like one another, and Jimmy is upset about Helena staying with them. Helena blames Jimmy for taking Alison away and subjecting her to an impoverished life. She does not think Jimmy (or Cliff) is a real man, because all he does is whine and paint himself as a victim. Helena eventually contacts Alison’s father, Colonel Redfern, and convinces Alison to leave for her own health and peace of mind. This is one of the few instances in the play where women have their own agency. An earlier instance is when Alison defies Jimmy and goes to church with Helena. Jimmy hates church, as he sees it as part of the Establishment that he detests.
Helena’s actions show just how disgusted she is with Jimmy, such as when she threatens to hit him. He replies that he will hit her back, that he is not above hitting a woman. Once again, Jimmy plays the part of the brute and attacks everyone else for not understanding him. He tells Helena, right after threating to hit her, that he has had to watch his father die and so understands death and helplessness. As much as Jimmy wants to change the present and the future, that is, he himself is stuck in the past. Despite Helena’s disgust, however, by the end of the act she kisses Jimmy. This turn of events is shocking in that she has been counseling Alison to stand up for herself and to run away from Jimmy’s abuse. Yet she willingly begins an affair with the monster she has been fighting against. This event highlights that people are far more complex than one realizes, and that there are hidden facets to those we know and to those we think we know.
When Colonel Redfern arrives, the reader better understands the shift between political beliefs and social classes. The Colonel wishes that England were as it had been when he left it back in 1913. He liked his peaceful days in India, where he was stationed, as well. He understands that he is dreaming idly, but also understands that he and Alison are “fence sitters,” meaning they sit by in a passive state and watch the world go by. Because of this, he understands much of what Jimmy means when he attacks the complacency of the middle class. The Colonel is a symbol of a dying system, a person stuck in the transition and out of touch with modernity. Alison, however, is also stuck in a transition. She likes her old life of privilege, but she wants to be the person Jimmy wants her to be. She leaves by the end of the act, unable to deal with the arguments and abuse from Jimmy. In this act, she shows agency, which is rare for her character.
