Sounding the Oirish: OBrien versus Synge :: Essays Papers

Sounding the Oirish OBrien versus SyngeSynge was perhaps the most monstrous phony and buffeon ever so to enter our celtic toilet, but he won international fame and funds because foreigners extracted strange meanings and nuances from the speech communication he used.Flann OBrien was a writer obsessed with both(prenominal) nationhood and language, and saw the two as inextricably entwined. Nowhere was this more apparent than in his writings under the pseudonym of Myles na Gopaleen. One particular(prenominal) target of OBriens scorn was J. M. Synges Playboy of the Western World. OBrien felt that with the success of Synges play, the detail-Irishman as he appeared in Dion Boucicaults works of the mid-1800s had become the prime symbol of Irishness (although, it may be argued, both Boucicault and Synge are rollting forward a instigative version of the stage Irishman who had been a staple part of English bid for centuries). The main thrust of OBriens knife is this The set-up is thi s. These people turn angrily on the British and roar How dare you insult us with your stage Irishman, a monkey-faced leering scoundrel in ragged knee-breeches and a tail coat, eternally drunk and threatening anybody in sight with his shillelagh? We can put together a far better stage Irishman ourselves, thank you. The Irish Stage Irishman is the best in the world.The pig-in-the-kitchen image of Ireland was, as far as OBrien was concerned, the main effect of the nationalistic firing of half-cocked muskets. Rather than subverting the English stage Irishman, Boucicault, Synge and their ilk merely augmented its dubious itinerary (I never tell that the pro-subversion argument was a winning one). The crippling stroke OBrien applies to Synge deals exclusively with language The worst was Synge. Here we had a moneyed dilettante glide slope consecutive from Paris to study the peasants of Aran not knowing a syllable of their language, then coming back to pour forth a deluge of homemade sl ang term all over the Abbey stage ... From such jargon has emerged such superbly entertainments as Darby OGill and the Little People, The Quiet Man, and even the recent offerings Far and off and Waking Ned (add to this truncated role of dishonour umpteen others, and dont forget that amadan in Braveheart). Although Synge may have had subversive intentions, the legacy such work has granted us is not subversive at all. Instead it bedecks the politics of colonialism with praties, shillelaghs, and a bottle of the aul poitin.