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Essay on Manus '-Brian Friel's Translations
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Essay on Manus '-Brian Friel's Translations in response to a critics quote. Essay Plan attached. Top Marks (A)
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-Unyielding to change for the benefit of the -Nothing to do with England. Crime of lovecolonist over loyalty
-Unyielding as he is pro gestures of defiance -Is Manus really the true loser?
to English authority even when these lead to
his greatest loss
-The contrasts between Owen and Manus
add to why the audience see Manus as the
saddest loser
-Physical attributes and circumstance lead
trap him as a loser (setting)
Manus is one of the key characters in Brian Friel’s ‘Translations’. The play opened in 1980 at
Derry’s Guildhall amidst a time of political and social insecurity and turmoil. The character of
Manus at his presentation in the opening of the play is very different from the Manus we see
at the end due to Friel’s complex and intriguing character development arc. In his character
development, Manus loses a lot and so some including E.K. Andrews see him as ‘the saddest
loser in the play’. E.K. Andrews also sees Manus as a dramatic representation of the traditional
nationalist who is stubborn and unyielding to English oppression and in some cases have
nothing to do with their oppressors altogether.
Firstly, Manus can be seen to be representative of the stubborn attitude of traditional
Nationalists as he is unyielding to change as he says, “For the benefit of the colonist…”
Throughout the play, Manus is seen to reject the changes that are occurring around him but
in particular, the change of what he sees as foreign invaders in his home is certainly an
unwelcome one. Language plays a crucial part in the play as it explores the social and political
walls that are enforced by language barriers. Manus is one of the characters in the play who
is educated enough to speak a large variety of tongues fluently as taught by his polyglot father
Hugh. We see Manus is versed in Latin and Greek and of course his native Irish but he also
has the ability to speak English but in pure spite, he refuses as seen in the above quote due
to the unyielding stubbornness that embodies his character. The great language deception of
the play, where all characters seem to speak English but through their dialects are seen to be
either Irish or English speaking. However, the character of Manus is harder to fit into these
categories as his more intellectual dialect is more in liking to that of Captain Lancey’s, yet it is
by situational context and his characterised unyielding stubbornness that we as the audience
slot Manus into the Irish locale category. Manus’ stubbornness and unyielding manner to
change is reflected in the setting of the play as it changes very little and is set in “a disused
barn”. The once functional building is now devoid of purpose and loses its meaning and drive,
the same way we see Manus at the end of the play. Perhaps a further note can be drawn from
how Lancey threatens to level Baile Beag and so due to a lack of change this building shall fall
just as Manus will at the hand of the people Manus is trying to stop and protest. The
stubbornness we see is, therefore, further seen in the way Manus responds to the renaming
of Ireland which in the real world began upon the referral of the Spring-Rice report of 1824;
“it’s a bloody military operation…What’s incorrect about the place names we have here?”
Friel’s use of an expletive and a rhetorical question combines to show how stubborn and
unyielding to change Manus is. He clearly wishes to have nothing to do with England just as
E.K. Andrews concluded and Manus sees the Ordnance Survey of Ireland as a military
invasion. Yes, the mapping was carried out by military authorities (Lt Thomas Colby who led
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