History, Language and Post-colonial Issues in Brian Friel’s Translations :: Essays Papers

History, Language and Post- colonial Issues in Brian Friels TranslationsOwen Back to first principles. What are we trying to do? Yolland Good question.Owen We are trying to denominate and at the same time describe . . . Dun na nGall or Donegal? Muineachain or Monaghan? Same place, same difference? As Owen says about his own fall uponOwen - Roland - what the hell. Its only a name.( Translations )For the student of post-colonial literature, what transpires in Friels scat as the British army proceed to map this particular box of the empire is that like language itself, it is not so much the grant and the changing of names but what that signifies and what those names signify in a particular context, coming from a particular mouth. A simple post-colonial drill could view such events as a violation of geographic lay Imperialism after all is an act of geographical violence through which roughly every space in the world is explored, charted, and finally brought under control. (Said, 10), and an appropriation and subversion of identity. What makes Friels play so rich is the way his converse plays with the subtle antinomies and nuances of the situation. Can one identify a coherent over-embellished project, a desire to exterminate subversive Gaelic or is it the infallible pragmatic impulse of commerce and laissez-faire economics? The practicalities of day-to-day humanity are clear in Maires desire to learn slope so she can work in America. Owen exemplifies engagement with the colonial join in contrast to his brother, Manus. However, when the play has taken its tragic term of enlistment it is Owen who suffers ignominy at the command of Lancey who orders him, Do your job - translate. (Act 3)The translations acquire the biting taste of complicity, betrayal and shame in Owens mouth. Owen also serves, potentially, as mimic-man in his role as servant of the empire - one who, . . .simultaneously reinforces colonial authority and disturbs it.(Sharpe) His final e xit, to find Doalty - be it to help him or stop him - as a Yeatsian man of action, potentiates this aspect of the abstractive type. His blend of pragmatism and willingness to engage mark him as, in Saidian terms, a potentially liberating force. Manus in this binarism represents Saids first stage of Nationalism.Jose Rabasa, in Allegories of Atlas, discusses the significance of the map in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Functioning as a mirror of the world it offers a conception of a human race, .