The Legacy of Communist Idealism Contested in Chicken Soup with Barley by Arnold Wesker: Political Imperative upon the Personal and Subverted Binary Opposites

A dramatic dismantling will surely show that arnold wesker’s early plays represent the most amiable contestation of the new left and the new conditions with the surprising yet desired success of the labour. in early post-war years, britons anachronistically hold the myth of the long edwardian summer and thus reconnect with peace after the great wars. unfortunately, though, the repressed memories of wars haunt the writings and the aura of the age. that’s why in wesker’s accounts, especially in his early corpus, wars work double shift reminding us the hopes of the new generation and their disillusionment after the failure of the labour. with this background in mind, our study tries to enlarge the theme of communist idealism and disappointment contested in wesker’s chicken soup with barley. in this play, an angry young man through and through and a representative playwright of the first wave in post-war british drama, arnold wesker poignantly shows how politics works as an imperative upon the private and the personal and it is also the sexual politics that wesker contests and subverts. these two issues further serve for his handling of ethnicity (anglo-jewry), class (proletariat) and gender (binary opposition).