Colonel Redfern and Class Change ‘In Look Back In Anger’ By John Osborne
The class change is present in almost every country that ever existed. In its essence, it represents a logical continuation of the existence of the state, country, or any sovereign realm under altered circumstances. And when new conditions are established, logically, new moral values are set, social matters are seen as new qualities, even sometimes, new vocabularies are recognized, thus changing the priorities of the society.
In the play of John Osborne, “ Look Back in Anger”, we can sense this social change that originates from the aftermath of The Second World War.” Look Back in Anger ” is an outcome of that change. It reflects, for the first time, the real issues of real people, who suffered the consequences of the war and the immediate class change of the society that followed. The play itself represents a turn point of the modern British drama.
One of the characters I am going to elaborate, which is directly con-cerned with the class change, is the colonel Redfern, Alison’s father.
Colonel Redfern obtained and formed his attitudes towards the world was the late Victorian Age. A period when there was an enormous increase in wealth in the Empire and also a period when the British Empire reached its climax in the development of the outcomes gained with the Industrial Revolution – the non-evitable zenith – imperial colonialism. A rather differ-ent set of values, which emphasized hard work, thrift, religious observance, family life, an awareness of one’s duty, absolute honesty in public life, was established at the time. The British considered themselves rather superior to the other people. It was the period of “the white man’s burden” when the British, as a leading nation in the world came to see themselves as having a duty to spread their culture and civilization throughout the colonies they possessed.
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He had moved to India in 1914 to take charge of the Maharaja’s army. He and the family did not return to the “Motherland” until after war in 1947 which makes it a total of 33 years abroad.
Since then, two world wars and massive social reform have plunged Osborne’s England onto a different path. The end of the wars also brought an end to the British Empire. Britain granted political, if not total freedom, to all of its colonies, vastly diminishing its size and losing plenty of resources.
The Industrial Revolution and the development of technology during the two world wars continued after they ended. This increased productivity created more jobs and helped everyone to prosper. It also led to the devel-opment of suburbs as more laborers looked to the city for employment, as the city looked for a place to house them. Several Acts were implemented by the government to help those less fortunate. Acts beginning a National Health Service and Un-Employment helped keep the often-unfortunate lower classes from slipping through the cracks in society.
The society itself was beginning to recuperate.
Moreover, the culture of Britain became that of its youth. No longer was it popular to go to the theatre or the opera, but to go to the movies or watch TV. This youthful influence had an impact on every aspect of life from fashion to entertainment.
Women and men sought greater freedom, and protested when it was not granted.
As for colonel Redfern, he was described by Jimmy with the follow-ing sentence that is quoted by Alison: “Poor old Daddy – just one of those sturdy old plants left over from the Edwardian Wilderness that can’t under-stand why the sun isn’t shining anymore.” If these are truly Jimmy’s words, then his use of imagery is interesting. There is some sort of connection be-tween the colonel being a plant and having the last name “Redfern”, al-though the symbolism is too obvious. I think that this name is somehow connected to the family’s (including Alison’s) old life, including the time they spent in India. Alison has changed the name, and symbolically her old life, by marrying Jimmy. The image of the “sun [not] shining anymore” is reminiscent of the phrase, “The sun will never set on the British Empire.”
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The phrase originally referred to the fact that Britain’s colonial holdings were so vast that the sun would always be shining on some part of the Em-pire. But now, with the end of colonialism following the independence of the British colonies, the sun had finally set on Britain’s holdings, and “isn’t shin-ing anymore.”
I guess that Jimmy probably feels that the Colonel is one of few peo-ple who understand his situation because Colonel’s situation is very similar to Jimmy’s. The England the Colonel knew when he left is much different from the England the Colonel and his family returned to. Not only that, the Colonel was a military man, but also with the end of Colonialism, he was out of a job, and once again a civilian. Now he has returned to England, and has probably found that he does not fit in anywhere.
As Alison says when talking to colonel Redfern: “You’re hurt because eve-rything is changed. Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same. And nei-ther of you can face it”, because everything is changed, the colonel does not “fit “ anywhere in the society, and opposite, Jimmy is frustrated, because everything is the same (reading newspapers, drinking tea etc.)
As far as the change of society is concerned, I find it very normal, not because of the fact that I myself have gone through one, but because on the way of development, many countries become vast and powerful and there is always an appointed period of time after change when they “suffer “ the consequences of their greatness. That is the period we are talking about in Britain.
