This thesis analyses the theme of anger in John Osborne&rsquo / s plays, namely Look Back in Anger, Inadmissible Evidence and Watch it Come Down, in terms of frustration-aggression hypothesis and psychoanalytic theory. It investigates the reasons for the protagonists&rsquo / rage and the ways the characters reflect their anger onto other people.

Despite the broadening of the subject matter of English drama in its ???new wave??? period from the late nineteen fifties, it is striking to see how much of enduring mainstream English drama has a domestic focus. The purpose of this thesis is to provide the first full-length study of marriage on the English stage from 1930-1990. The thesis examines the way in which a number of important playwrights have fashioned drama from the conflict between the public, or institutional, functions of marriage and the private, or relational, functions of marriage. The thesis places this conflict into historical context. This will show that the conflict between the private and public aspects of marriage is not one of clearly opposed opposites but one that is made dynamic by significant social and legal changes to the status, function and conventions of marriage. The thesis also demonstrates that this conflict is further complicated by class considerations and by the particular circumstances of each marital partnership. From the wealth of material available, I have chosen to examine in detail the work of seven playwrights who have made significant contributions to domestic drama or domestic comedy. Playwrights have been selected because their plays gained a strong audience on first performance and because, through numerous revivals and through publication of scripts, they have earned an enduring place in English drama. John Osborne???s Look Back in Anger, which in 1956, ushered in the ???new wave???, is pivotal play for discussion. The previous generation is represented by Noel Coward, J. B. Priestley and Terence Rattigan. The ???new wave??? and its aftermath are represented by Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and, finally Alan Ayckbourn. Despite a wide variety of approaches to the topic of marriage, these writers tend to assume a middle class audience and to follow or adapt the traditions of realism or comedy of manners. This thesis argues that despite real, even radical, changes to marriage, to accepted sexual practices and to the status of women in the sixty years under discussion, the mainstream theatre has tended to be conservative in its presentation of marital and sexual matters, especially in continuing to reinscribe a public/private opposition determined by gender.

Despite the broadening of the subject matter of English drama in its ???new wave??? period from the late nineteen fifties, it is striking to see how much of enduring mainstream English drama has a domestic focus. The purpose of this thesis is to provide the first full-length study of marriage on the English stage from 1930-1990. The thesis examines the way in which a number of important playwrights have fashioned drama from the conflict between the public, or institutional, functions of marriage and the private, or relational, functions of marriage. The thesis places this conflict into historical context. This will show that the conflict between the private and public aspects of marriage is not one of clearly opposed opposites but one that is made dynamic by significant social and legal changes to the status, function and conventions of marriage. The thesis also demonstrates that this conflict is further complicated by class considerations and by the particular circumstances of each marital partnership. From the wealth of material available, I have chosen to examine in detail the work of seven playwrights who have made significant contributions to domestic drama or domestic comedy. Playwrights have been selected because their plays gained a strong audience on first performance and because, through numerous revivals and through publication of scripts, they have earned an enduring place in English drama. John Osborne???s Look Back in Anger, which in 1956, ushered in the ???new wave???, is pivotal play for discussion. The previous generation is represented by Noel Coward, J. B. Priestley and Terence Rattigan. The ???new wave??? and its aftermath are represented by Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard and, finally Alan Ayckbourn. Despite a wide variety of approaches to the topic of marriage, these writers tend to assume a middle class audience and to follow or adapt the traditions of realism or comedy of manners. This thesis argues that despite real, even radical, changes to marriage, to accepted sexual practices and to the status of women in the sixty years under discussion, the mainstream theatre has tended to be conservative in its presentation of marital and sexual matters, especially in continuing to reinscribe a public/private opposition determined by gender.

This thesis is an attempt to portray the birth of British modern drama and the most important figures breaking its new ground; more to the point, to shed light on the second generation of British dramatists breaking what G.B. Shaw used to call ‘middle-class morality’. The focal point here is fixed on Stephen Poliakoff, one of the distinctive dramatists in contemporary British theatre, his work and the dramatic tinge he adds to the new drama.

This thesis is an attempt to portray the birth of British modern drama and the most important figures breaking its new ground; more to the point, to shed light on the second generation of British dramatists breaking what G.B. Shaw used to call ‘middle-class morality’. The focal point here is fixed on Stephen Poliakoff, one of the distinctive dramatists in contemporary British theatre, his work and the dramatic tinge he adds to the new drama. / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished