Analysis of Brian Friel’s Novel Translations

Analysis of Brian Friel 's Novel Translations

1 . The author fills the speech of his Irish protagonists with these allusions and makes them use Greek and Latin in the casual speech in to show the specific mentality the dwellers of the Baile Beag share . Unlike people who dwell outside of this Irish community they live according to the customs that were established hundreds and thousands years ago , they have their own values that differ much from those of the outsiders . Lots of Englishman tended to think of Irish as of uneducated and

stupid , and for to break this false image , the author puts the citations from Iliad and Odyssey into the mouths of his protagonists . It is obvious that people whose farm man and women speak fluent Latin and translate from Greek cannot be considered dumb or unenlightened , as they were thought of because of their denial to speak English . It is also that the mentality of most of his protagonists , like Manus , Hugh or Jimmy is cognate to the mentality of the dweller of antique police Greek city , when the man sees himself only as the part of the police

2 . Hedge schools existed in Ireland for hundreds of years , there most of Irish had been getting their education . The cultural invasion of the English to the Ireland tried to wipe out all the attainments of the Irish culture , to prove that the very notion of Irish culture was fiction . The emergence of the standard public schools in Ireland led to the evanescence of the hedge schools that had previously allowed grown ups get their education when and where it was convenient for them . The law required that all the children had to be sent to school and attend it almost all the year round , but in the agricultural Ireland of the times , described in the play , when children were used by their parents as the labor force it was impossible to provide at least minimal education to everybody . Parents just ignored the directions of the government , and the children kept working instead of studying . The author discusses schooling in his play , as it is a very controversial issue whether the public schools that replaced the hedge ones added to the overall literacy of the Irish nation or vice versa

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