Compare Jimmy Porter and Cliff Lewis.

Cliff is Jimmy' s friend and partner in the candy stall business and shares the Porters' flat, although he has his own bedroom across the hall. Cliff is a poorly educated, working class man of Welsh heritage. He is warm, loving, and humorous. He genuinely loves Alison but adjusts when she leaves and Helena moves in. Cliffs first allegiance is to Jimmy. Nevertheless, ultimately he decides to go out on Ms own.

Jimmy is the opposite of Cliff. He dominates the play through the power of his anger and language. He unleashes his invective on what he calls the Establishment (those "born" to power and privilege), the church as part of the Establishment, and his loved ones. Osborne describes him as "a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice, of tenderness and freebooting cruelty; restless, importunate, full of pride, a combination which alienates the sensitive and insensitive alike." Critic Harold Ferrar assessed him as a man of decency and charity who is "one of life's beautiful losers."