Arnold Wesker’s Early Plays: A Study of His Personal Experiences

Abstract

Arnold Wesker’s Trilogy plays specially Chicken Soup with Barley and Roots bear the mark of his personal experience. These plays were written before he was thirty and all of them are deep-rooted in the playwright’s own life. Among all the modern dramatists, Arnold Wesker is one of the most personally involved authors in his own works, even though drama offers list opportunity for this kind of authorial subjectivity. His achievements as a dramatist have been perceived in close relation to the experiences of his real life. His working-class people spring directly from the texture of his own life. "When I look back it seems to me that all my writings are attempts to resolve or continue more lucidly arguments I had with my family, my friends and the people with whom I worked."(Discovery 1960) His unhappy childhood, his parents' quarrel and a raging conflict within him enabled him to bring gigantic events and ordinary people under his penetrating eyes. He articulated the issues of human relationship forcefully in his novels, letters, reviews and interviews and in his plays as well. Wesker was doing what he did best- writing autobiographically by drawing heavily on his experiences in a Jewish family with a communist mother and socialist friends. He wrote stories about his wife, about his mother and father and his working-class neighbourhood in London's East End, and his trade union aunts who fought the good fight for political causes. Being very strict to his stuff and substance, Wesker modelled some of his characters on his own family members and friends. He painted the people of his plays with the colour and culture, ethics and attitude, code and conduct, beliefs and values of his own background and surroundings. He wrote directly from the first-hand knowledge and personal experience in his early plays. His vision of life is deeply rooted in the long tradition of cultural achievement (family’s roots) that can enrich the lives of individuals and the community. He made his public activities as an integral part of his work.