Monireh Arvin - Tehran University

Every modern epoch seems to produce a small number of artists whose work providessociety with an antidote to the ignorance of its own exhaustion. Arnold Wesker is one ofthese writers who offer this therapeutic service to an ailing body. The three plays whichmake up The Wesker Trilogy (1960) ─ Chicken Soup with Barley, Roots, and I’m Talkingabout Jerusalem ─ were drawn on Wesker’s working-class Jewish background and hisown direct experience. The Wesker Trilogy has charted the gradual fading of Communistfaith and youthful energy among a group of Jews in the East End of London from 1936 to1959. While he is entirely committed to the view that the people of his own working classare deprived of the good things of life by various kinds of exploitation, Wesker sees theirown short-comings and he is not misled into class-conscious romanticism. The mainissue discussed in this article is that Wesker works to protect human freedom and dignityto promote a life worth living. Although he follows many of the goals of socialism, hewillingly subordinates his socialist principles of solidarity and communal cooperation todefend the rights of the individual choosing between ideological coercion and personalconscience.

Class Conflict, Communism, Jews