Translations: Analysis of Major Characters
"Translations" is a play that explores the complexities of language, culture, and identity through its richly drawn characters set in 19th-century Ireland. At the center is Hugh Mor O'Donnell, an aging master of a hedge school who grapples with the inevitability of English replacing Irish, reflecting on the cultural implications of this transition. His eldest son, Manus, is caught in a web of familial duty and personal aspirations, yearning for love but constrained by his father's authority and his own limitations. In contrast, the youngest son, Owen, has adopted the role of a British collaborator, initially finding financial success but ultimately confronting the moral ramifications of his actions.
Other key figures include Maire, a strong-willed woman eager to embrace English for its practicality amid economic uncertainty, and Lieutenant Yolland, a British officer who falls in love with her while seeking to bridge the language divide. The character of Jimmy Jack, an eccentric yet knowledgeable student, provides a humorous commentary on British superiority, while Sarah, with her speech impediment, represents the struggle for voice and expression in a time of oppression. Together, these characters embody the tensions between tradition and progress, love and loss, and the profound effects of colonialism on personal and collective identities. The play invites audiences to reflect on how language shapes reality and relationships within the context of cultural change.
Translations: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Brian Friel
First published: 1981
Genre: Play
Locale: Baile Beag, in County Donegal, Ireland
Plot: Social realism
Time: 1833
Hugh Mor O'Donnell, the master of an Irish hedge school, in his early sixties, who persists in educating his charges (most of whom are adults) in the classical languages, despite his growing recognition that English is the language of the future. Fond of his pint, he has usually taken a drop too much, but he is never really drunk. Irascible and arrogant, he, more than anyone else in the play, understands that the translation of Irish place-names into English involves a transition from one world to another. Furthermore, despite his personal regret at the cultural violence done by such translation, he recognizes the inevitability of the transition if Ireland is to avoid being “imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of… fact.” a poet writing in a language few can read, he understands the extent to which language shapes humankind's understanding of the world and sees clearly the forces sweeping his country from “spiritual” Irish to “commercial” English.
Manus, Hugh's eldest son, in his late twenties or early thirties. He assists Hugh in the hedge school, makes his dinner, and sees him safely through the hours of drink. For all of this, his father pays him no salary and treats him like a footman. Manus loves Maire and would like to marry her, but he has no way to support her and will not go against his father for the job at the new national school the British are building. He is lame because his father, drunk, fell on him while he was a baby. Manus somehow turns the incident into a reason for being responsible for his father. He is a gentle, caring man, hurt by what is happening to Ireland and hurt by Maire's defection but without the capacity to resist either effectively.
Owen, Hugh's youngest son, in his late twenties, who had “escaped” to England and returns now in service to the British, who need him to help remap Ireland because they do not speak Irish. The British never get his name right and call him Roland. Initially pleased to have avoided his brother's fate and to be earning a good salary, he is finally appalled by the consequences of the process of which he has been a part.
Lieutenant George Yolland, in his twenties, the officer in charge of translating Irish place-names into English. He speaks only English and relies heavily on Owen. In love with Ireland and with Maire, he longs to learn the language that will open communication with both. His courtship of Maire takes place across the language barrier and illustrates the power of love and nonverbal communication.
Maire, a lively, strong woman in her twenties, with little sympathy for Manus' reluctance to take steps to escape the dual traps of exploitation by his father and a failing Irish economy. She wants to learn English, a practical language that she knows will serve her well when she immigrates to America. When she falls in love with Yolland, she discovers that feelings are not hindered by language barriers.
Jimmy Jack, called the “Infant Prodigy” even though he is in his sixties, a dirty, poor student in Hugh's school who does not always distinguish clearly between the mythology he studies in Greek and the “real” world around him. He is at times faintly ridiculous, but his fluency in Greek and Latin indirectly comments on the superiority assumed by the British, who speak only English.
Sarah, in her twenties, a student in Hugh's class whose speech defect is so severe that she has always been assumed to be mute. Manus, whom she loves, is teaching her to speak.
Captain Lancey, Lieutenant Yolland's superior officer. He is a stereotypical representation of rigid, self-righteous British imperialism, convinced of his own superiority, with no sympathy or understanding of the country or the people whose land he is dominating and changing.