Translation Essay
Look Again at Act Two, SCENE ONE, from ?OWEN: What is happening? to ?OWEN: A perfect congruence with its reality.? Do you agree that this exchange between Owen and Yolland represents a pivotal point in the play as a whole Use a close examination of this extract as your starting point.
This section of the play is very important as it contains the major theme of the play: language. We are also informed about Owen and Yolland?s views towards language. It encompasses what has happened and we are led into the rest of the play, with hints of what is to come.
Owen was brought up in Ireland by his father, Hugh. Hugh is the master of the local hedge school, he is a drunken old man who ?[carries] a stick? with him to look very authoritarian. The hedge schools were first created when in the seventeenth century Catholic and Gaelic education was outlawed in the Ireland, they were mobile or secret schools. When the laws were relaxed the schools were moved to barns. However, we see the threat to the Hedge school very early on in the play. The national schools are
owen, yolland, name, irish, language, play, english, community, very, realise, names, culture, whole, schools, school, perfect, out, manus, lancey, however, hedge, people, one, hugh, friel, first, about, tells, story, realises, place, national, keep, identity, being
