Abstract
This research explores the marginalization and symbolization of female characters in post-war British drama through John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party. Although the two plays belong to different theatrical modes, kitchen sink realism and the theatre of the absurd, both present domestic space as a site where class tension and gendered power relations are exposed. The paper first examines how female characters are confined to domestic, maternal, or sexualized roles and denied full autonomy within male-centered narratives. It then analyzes how these female figures become symbolic objects: they are made to represent oppressive social structures or vulnerable targets of violence. Finally, the study argues that such representations are shaped by male writers’ dramatization of male characters’ mixed desire for and fear of female power, especially maternal authority. By reading these plays against the changing gender roles of post-war Britain, this paper reveals how some of the male-authored drama both registers and limits the emerging visibility of women as independent subjects.
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How to cite this paper
The Marginalized and Symbolized Female Image in Post-war British Drama: A Study of Look Back in Anger and The Birthday Party
How to cite this paper: Qiyun Chang. (2026) The Marginalized and Symbolized Female Image in Post-war British Drama: A Study of Look Back in Anger and The Birthday Party. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, 10(6), 654-662.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2026.06.008