On The Hybridized Situation In Brian Friel's Translations

Brian Friel was an important playwright in Ireland,whose works reveal realistic problems in many aspects of Irish society.He published 24 plays in his writing career from the 1960 s to the 1990 s.He founded the Field Day Theatre Company in 1980 and Translations was the first play staged there.Friel's works probe into the politics and culture of Ireland,centering around the lives of common people and marginalized people.This paper studies Friel's masterpiece Translations.Time and place,two important factors in the play,are introduced first.The story was set in 1833 in Irish countryside when the Ordnance Survey was first made in the village and the National School System was about to be established,Friel created the small town Ballybeg to stage his characters and develop plots.Having the conflict between England and Ireland and the long Irish history,Ballybeg became the epitome of Ireland in the transitional time.The thesis analyzes the hybridized situation from a post-colonialist point of view,and further analyzes the local people's confusion of identity under the cultural clash.Through the Ordnance Survey and the National School System,the English government aimed at depriving Ireland of her culture and language and forcing her to accept the English language.They did not achieve the goal but brought about coexistence of two name systems and two educational systems.The characters became hybrids and victims of the transitional period who consistently struggled for identities.Some main characters are analyzed from the perspective of their choices and reaction under the hybridized situation.The nationalist Manus insisted on his Irishness and refuses to accept English.Owen,acting as the go-between in the play,tried to negotiate the two conflicting parties.Hugh,who most represented Friel's ideas,chose to accept English as a way to express Irishness rather than to deny it,knowing that the old Gealic civilization has to give way to English imperialism.As a postcolonial playwright,Friel dramatizes the conflict between England and Ireland and the threats of losing Irish cultural identity,expanding the scope andexploring the solution for cultural identity issue.He not only reminds people of the historical past of Ireland under the English colonialism and reflects the influence of colonialism and tries to provide practical solutions to the problems.The play is of realistic significance to the still turbulent Ireland and many colonized countries all over the world.