SOURCE: Galef, David. “Beyond Anger: Osborne's Wrestle with Language and Meaning.” In John Osborne: A Casebook, edited by Patricia D. Denison, pp. 21-33. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997.

In the following essay, Galef analyzes the role of language and communication in Osborne's plays.

When a character in an Osborne play tries to communicate to the audience that he cannot communicate—and this happens fairly regularly—it is generally assumed that he is on the wrong side of the cultural divide. The British Mass Education Act of 1944 produced an entire generation of graduates too educated for the working classes, yet not aristocratic enough for the upper crust: the Jimmy Porters, Jim Dixons, and Charles Lumleys of this era. But as Angela Hague has pointed out in “The Angry Young Novel” (209), not every voice from that era fits the stereotype, and many of the concerns are more philosophical and further-reaching...