Translations - Brian Friel CM PDF

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Cours de CM de Littérature Irlandaise du S6 de L3 LLCE Anglais....

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CM - TRANSLATIONS

BRIAN FRIEL – TRANSLATIONS The context in which the play was created was the Northern Ireland Travels. The historical context of the play (the Penal Laws and the surveys especially) is important. The play is about the visit of EN officers in charge of doing the ordnance survey: it’s the drawing of a map. It’s based on real historical events. Brian Friel was a Catholic from the North. He was born in 1929 and died in 2015. It was the end of the war of Independence. The IR had fought for Home Rule. They had obtained it in 1912. Home Rule was opposed by the Unionists (the Protestants). They wanted at all cost to remain in the UK. It ended with the Anglo-IR Treaty in 1921. That treaty created not yet the Republic of IRL ( 1947) but the Free State of IRL. It also created the province of Northern Ireland. It remained part of the UK, which became the United Kingdom of GB and Northern IRL. There was the need to draw a frontier, but it was not a geographical one. Everything was made so as to secure a Protestant majority in NIRL. If we look at the map, we see that NIRL contains only 6 counties. They excluded Donegal.

After the creation of NIRL in 1921, the Unionists and the Protestants secured power in the province . For decades, they established a series of discriminations against the Catholics in NIRL: in jobs mostly. When there was a job opening and if a Catholic & a Protestant applied, the Protestant would always get the job. It was also the case in housing. The vote was organized so that the constituencies were divided again according to the number of Unionists inside , so that Protestants will be better represented. It is called gerrymandering. There was one city that was particularly involved in that: Derry. From the start, this is a controversial city (founded by the Protestants who called it Londonderry). This went on for decades, but in the 1960’s, there was a consequence of the Welfare State in BR: it implied free access to third-level education (Uni). All BR laws applied to NIRL. This meant that a new generation of Catholics had access to third-level

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CM - TRANSLATIONS education. They began to be better educated, to have degrees… But it was still difficult for them to get a job. Those people began to develop a political consciousness: that’s how they created the NIRL Civil Rights Association (NICRA) on the modal of the Civil Right Movement in the US. MLK believed in non-violence. So, NICRA asked for equal rights between C and P in education, housing, jobs etc. and the end of gerrymandering. Instead of being violent, they organized demonstrations and marches. In Derry, they organized a huge demonstration in 1909. It was very violently repressed by the police. Why? Because the police were exclusively composed of P. It was called The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). They hated the C. So, they charged them and there were a lot of people who were wounded. At the time, there were journalists: they filmed the events, and this was released on TV. This triggered riots all over the province. P and C started to live in separate neighborhoods. The local government was unable to cope, so London decided to introduce direct provision: a direct government from the GB. And they sent the BR army. It was the beginning of 30 years of “the Troubles”. There was paramilitary organizations such as the IRA, UDA (Ulster Defense Army) and UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force ). There were thousands of victims, hundreds of prisoners with outstanding episodes such as Bloody Sunday. It lasted until 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement: they would delete the frontier between IRL and NIRL. The play is set in the quiet community of Baile Beag (later anglicized to Ballybeg), in County Donegal, in 1833. Many of the inhabitants have little experience of the world outside the village. In spite of this, tales about Greek goddesses are as commonplace as those about the potato crops, and, in addition to Irish, Latin and Greek are spoken in the local hedge school. The master of the hedge school is called Hugh. He drinks a lot. His sons are called Manus (he is disabled, he has a limp) who works with his father and Owen. Contrary to Manus, he is returning from Dublin, and is educated etc. He returns with two EN officers. Soon, Hugh and Manus discover that they do not call Owen Owen, Rolland. So, Owen has accepted to have his name translated in EN, and to give up his IR identity. The students are not children, they are grown-ups and they pay Hugh some money in order to receive an education. The second thing which is not common: they study mostly Greek and Latin. The audience are confronted to the same problems as the characters: what we are reading is a translation of Greek and Latin, but also IR. All the characters are supposed to speak IR. The audience was aware of that. The IR language had been lost so they would not have understood. The play is in translation, about translation. Language is at the center of the play and of the action. Even in a lot of programs and laws etc. were set up in order to force people to go back to the original language of IRL (IR), it failed. To a large extent, IR people speak EN. Except in very limited areas in the country. It’s a device that Friel uses to make us experiment what the loss of a language means. The play is, by essence, bilingual. But in fact, it contains even more than 2 languages: 4. The action of the play is located in a school: they study mostly Greek and Latin.

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CM - TRANSLATIONS

To what extent is this based on historical reality? It’s the hedge school. Hegde Schools were secret schools, parallel schools which took place in the open air, organized by C. They wanted to preserve C tradition and give an education to C children, and spoke IR. Those schools were independent, not institutionalized. The BR government tried to set up a regular network of regular school in IRL, where EN language was used. It comes from an expression which means “faux”. The schoolteachers were paid by the students themselves . These schools were also used to train C priests. Hugh is well-educated, but also a drunker. He doesn’t fit the image of schoolteacher. When the play begins, a new law has been decided by the GB government in 1831: the National Schools. The play is situated in 1833. Teaching in those schools was to be made in EN. They were an improvement: an opportunity to give an education to all children. But also a threat because they would induce the disappearance of the IR language. This move is also a move from tradition to modernity. In a way, it’s one of the essential topics of the play. In the play, natural school are alluded to since Manus is offered a job in one of those schools. It would be a real opportunity for him. The name of the place: Baile Beag (later anglicized to Ballybeg). There is a bilingual designation. The play revolves around the arrival of BR soldiers. The ordnance survey: draw the first map of IRL ever. It was to be made with scientific precisions. It was as much a scientific experiment as a form of government measure. It was decided to send an army: The Sappers. This special regiment was called the Royal Engineers. They were under the supervision of Colonel Thomas Colby. They had a lot of material, very modern equipment for the time. Their aim was not only to draw a map (to decide the limit of properties: what land was owned by whom), but also in order to apply taxes. At that time, IRL was part of the UK. It was 30 years after the Act of Union. All the decisions were made in Westminster. This created a problem for the BR government: how to govern/rule a place which was not similar and organized the same way as their place. They had to be able to pronounce the names of the places. The soldiers sought the help of the locals: only them knew about the meaning of the places. In reality, the same happened as in the play. This is based on true historical facts. Very often, the people who helped the soldiers were schoolmasters, members of the clergy, small farmers… They knew about the origins of the place names because in IRL the names are very specific. There is a whole tradition revolving around the origin of names. In particular there is a series of legends, myths and a book which is a called Dindschenchas. Later on, when IRL became independent, the government also tried to set up a sort of catalogue of all the place names (and the explanations of their origins).

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CM - TRANSLATIONS

T H E

P L A Y

The play is rather simple. It is divided into three acts. The acts are not divided into scenes, except two scenes in Act II and Act III. The initial situation: we discover the characters and the school. The characters are doing their usual activities, but everything is interrupted by the unexpected return of Owen: Hugh’s son. It is the first complication. As Aristotle called it: a peripetia. It always disturbs the initial situation. He arrives with the BR soldiers. In Act I , they have an announcement to make: they had come to fulfill their survey, and as such, they are going to translate all the place names into EN. This gives rise to some kind of conflict between the two brothers: Owen and Manus. Friel used the device of the two opposite sides: the brothers. In Act II, this is the love story between Yolland and Maire. The play relies on the same pattern as Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet: love between two members of opposite families. A BR soldier, and an IR girl. In Act III, the complication reaches a climax: it is discovered that Yolland has been kidnaped, and the BR soldiers returns, and the tone has changed. They are threatening the inhabitants. Owen recognizes his mistakes, since he has agreed to cooperate with the BR soldiers. It’s anagnorisis. In conclusion, we may say that it is a tragic pattern. The general tone of the play is one of impending and dooming failure . This is about hubris. In a way, the characters are doomed from the start, there is nothing they can do in order to defeat fate. It is announced from the beginning. 1833 is only a few years after O’Connell obtained Catholic Emancipation. It was hope for an improvement in the situation of IR C, but that hope was disappointed when Home Rule was not obtained and when the Great Famine broke out. The play is situated between those two events. There are allusions to the Potato Famine. Page 17: Bridget says: “He said that as soon as he crossed over the gap (…) the sweet smell was everywhere ”. The end is tragic: Yolland disappears, Maire will emigrate to the USA, and most of all, the BR soldiers threaten to destroy the village in retaliation for the disappearance for Yolland.

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C H A R A C T E R S All of the characters embody either archaism or modernity. It’s tradition VS modernity. Many aspects of that school point to archaism. “ A wooden stairway

without a banister leads to the upstairs living-quarters of the schoolmaster and his son.” The characters inside the hedge school live in that old-fashioned broken world, whereas those who come from the outside such as the BR soldiers Lancey and Yolland, but also Owen who arrives from Dublin on the contrary embody modernity. The character in-between in Maire. Maire straddles the two worlds: she falls in love with Yolland and wants to travel to AM. Most of the characters in the play have some kind of disability. The students are all grown-ups. Among the students who attend the hedge school:  Sarah: she is half-mute. She has a speech defect. When the play opens, Manus is trying to teach her how to speak. It suggests the silencing of IR people who were deprived of their rights and language . She makes progress during the play, but they are stopped by the EN.  Manus: He is Hugh’s son, and he is lame. He has been unable to make a life for himself: he lives with his father. He is disabled. He represents the old world and the allegiance in the old Gaelic world. For instance, he refuses to teach EN in the national school. He is also the one who is angry because the soldiers don’t speak any IR. He blames his brother Owen for changing his name to Rolland. When the soldiers arrive in the second part of Act I. Manus says to Owen: “What sort of a translation was that Owen? You weren’t saying what Lancey was saying.” “Can’t you speak EN before your man? Don’t you want to learn IR?” Manus is the one who is betrayed and sacrificed in the play. Even though he refuses the position in the National School, if he had, he would have been in competition with his father. Hugh sacrifices his son Manus for his own good. And as he hasn’t got a job, he cannot marry Maire, who falls in love with Yolland. All of that because he holds on to his IR heritage. He wants to stay, to maintain the hedge school, and to cling to the old ways. Friel used the device of the two opposite brothers.  Owen is itself a transposition of the IR Eoin. It is strange that Friel should have chosen the EN spelling for Owen. His identity is not clear. He accepts that soldiers call him Rolland. His arrival in the hedge school causes a great disturbance: he introduces the soldiers to the place. “ a handsome,

attractive young man in his twenties. He is dressed smartly – a city man. His manner is easy and charming: everything he does is invested with consideration and enthusiasm”. He is supposed to be the opposite as his brother Manus. Owen behaves like a traitor. He also betrays the villagers: by mistranslating what the soldiers say to the villagers. What does he do by acting like a go-between? Does he bring progress or wellbeing to the villagers? Or does he bring tragedy and disaster? Disaster. The first part of the play shows the old world in action: the interactions between the characters. Their conditions are poor, but they are rich with knowledge and traditions. The map could be done by architects or something, but it is

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CM - TRANSLATIONS done by soldiers. Owen embodies modernity: he is a city man, and he has made money by having a job. He has become a business man.  Hugh: He was supposed to be the main character in the play and is a sort of spokesperson for the writer himself. He asks a lot of questions and Friel has placed in his mouth words that he borrowed from a book: After Babel by George Steiner, en AM linguist and philosopher. He discusses the possibility or not of translating from one language to another. Of course, Hugh is a kind of wise man: he is old, a master, and has a great command of Latin and Greek. But he is also much damage: a drunk. He is introduced in the play by the description “A large man, with residual dignity, shabbily dressed,

carrying a stick. He has, as always, a large quantity of drink taken, but he is by no means drunk”. There is a deep contradiction: even though he is the master of the hedge school, he is the one who is able to change, and he realizes that perhaps it is better to abandon the traditions and to move on to something else. One of the most famous revealing phrases when he says: “We must learn where we live, we must learn to make them our own, we must make them our new home ”. He is the cause of Manus disability: he stumbled upon the baby’s cradle. He has not been a very good father: Owen had to leave the village in order to make a living.  The Donnelly Twins are often spoken about, but they never appear on stage. They are responsible for the kidnapping of Yolland, and probably his death. They represent terrorism and secret paramilitary organizations. They embody the threat of lurking: general violence over the village of Baile Beag.  Maire comes from a large family. She is the eldest. She is afraid that the Potato Blight will break out, she will have nothing left to do in the village. When the play begins, she is more or less engaged with Manus. But she understands that he has no future, so she decided to go away to AM.

“Can I help you? What are you at?” “Map of AM. The passage money came last Friday”. “You never told me that.” (…) “Do you want to go?” “Did you apply for that job in the new national school?” “No” “you said you would” “I said I might” “When it opens, this is finished: nobody’s going to pay to go to a hedge-school”. Maire is benevolent towards the EN soldiers. She wants to learn EN. She thinks that EN is the language of modernity. In this regard, through Maire, Friel alludes to the opinions and attitude of O’Connell who fought for Catholic emancipation. Of course, Maire is at the center of the plot in the play. There are two parallel plots: the overall plot is the one about the soldiers who want to make a map, the reactions of the villagers towards this project, and the second plot is within that plot: the love story between Maire and Yolland. But it’s a story of betrayal: Owen introduces the EN soldiers to the village, and Manus was in love with Maire. It is Sarah who catches them and who reports to Manus. At the end, the soldiers return to threaten to destroy the village if Yolland is not found.  The EN soldiers (Yolland and Lancey). Yolland and Owen have a mirrorlike relationship. This can even be heard through their names: Rolland. Yolland sounds like “your land”. It also suggests this very important topic at the heart of the play: the EN soldiers arrive in Baile Beag to take possession of the land. But, Owen and Yolland work together and one helps the other to write the map. Yolland is a soldier by accident: “You see my father was at his wits end with me and finally (…) I set off for London.

Unfortunately, I missed the boat. And since I couldn’t face Father and hadn’t enough money to hang about until the next sailing, I

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joined the army”. The father of Yolland played an important part, such as Owen’s father: Hugh. The allusion to Bombay and to the East India company: Why should he have gone over to India? It was a colony. Friel establishes a parallel between India and IRL as colonies. Yolland isn’t a born soldier like Lancey. Lancey speaks in a sort of soldiery-bureaucratic language. Lancey repeats what his government say. “I conclusion I wish to

quote two brief extracts from the white paper which is our governing charter”. Yolland falls in love with IRL. “Do you think I could live here?” “What are you talking about?” “Settle down here – live here.” “Come on, George.” “I mean it”. “Live on what? Potato? Buttermilk?” He has a Romantic view of IRL, he doesn’t think about the fact that they eat potato. His view is idealized. He is attracted to Maire because she is IR. And Maire falls in love with him because he is EN, represents modernity and is a way to take her away from IRL. Yolland is trying to court Maire but they cannot understand each other. The playwright wants the audience to be transported in a different place. The scene mustn’t take place in IRL or EN: it takes place somewhere in-between, in an unnamed place where they could meet. “Say anything at all, I love the sound of your speech.” It’s a different form of communication. It goes beyond language. They like the sound of their voices, the sound of their speech, and they have body language. “They are now facing each other and begin moving – almost imperceptibly – towards another.” “He takes them. Each now speaks almost to himself / herself.” Two people belonging to different cultures can find a common ground to communicate even if they are not able to understand each other language. The play is wholly about language. The title is Translations. The characters on the stage are supposed to speak IR, whereas in fact they speak EN. EN and IR are not the only languages spoken in the play: Greek, Latin… And several forms of EN. There are expressions typical of the North such as “Wous” or “Wee”. There is also a variety of speakers in the play. Those who can speak several languages, and those who can speak only one. Friel here shows an irony: the IR can speak several languages and the EN only one. Those who are supposed to embody the superior civilization can only speak one language. Hugh realizes that and calls the EN Visigoth, Ignari. Hugh keeps asking que...