Research Paper on:
Brian Friel's Play Translations

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
However, what they found, and Brian Friels play, Translations, shows, was that the Irish people were not ready or willing to be assimilated. In a play whose theme is that  of identity through language and communication, it can also be said that there are social and political statements made that still ring true to this day. Set in Donegal in  1833, the play tells the story of a small village poised at a crossroads, so to speak. Hugh ODonnell, a teacher at one of the schools, a renegade school called  a Hedge school is the plays protagonist. As another form of resistance, these Hedge schools refuse to teach the English classics and language and instead focus on Irish based studies.  Shortly, the reader is introduced to ODonnells two sons, Manus and Owen. They would seem to be polar opposites. Manus has a bad leg and is slightly lame and Owen,  who has since left and started his own business returns to his home village to aid the British in their efforts at translating the Irish names into British ones. In  fact, as the play opens up, the senior ODonnells school has begun to experience a measure of the political unrest that has begun to pervade the area as several of  his students have dropped out. There are also two officers who come to do their duty. One is captivated by the culture and the people and perhaps understands what is  being lost in the translation. The other officer, a captain, shows that there is no love lost on him and he is there only to do a job.  The interconnectedness of a nations language to the identity of its people is explored and the characters are faced with brutal questions about themselves and a potential loss of their