Translation From Irish To English example essay topic

How does the title "Translations" direct the audience's attention to the issues Friel is trying to raise in the play? The play Translations, revolves around the subject of names and their relation to identity, culture, and the possession or dispossession that comes with naming. Sarah, who struggles with saying her name, and consequently with establishing her identity, is silenced once the colonisers arrive. The efforts of Maire and Yolland to understand each other were unsuccessful, because of the differences in culture embodied in language. In the love scene between Maire and Yolland, however, it is ultimately when they move beyond language, by reciting to each other the Irish place names, that the two are able to establish any real communication.

One of the main themes of the play is language and it's cultural or political affect on the townsfolk of Bally Be ag. Translation from Irish to English is not simply an exercise with words - it is a forced corruption of a people and a culture that victimizes British and Irish alike. At the same time, it also reveals the forces of modernisation, as Maire wants to learn English and go to America before the arrival of the English soldiers. The deceit in living in a mythical past is expressed through the character of Jimmy Jack, who is so far removed from reality that he inhabits the stories of the mythology he studies. As Hugh says, "it can happen that a civilization can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour that no longer matches the landscape of fact" Translations is set in a rural, Irish-speaking community in County Donegal in 1833.

This community is invaded by a British army, who plan to conduct an Ordnance Survey of Ireland, which would map the country and 'standardise', the Irish place-names. Captain Lancey and Lieutenant Yolland are being assisted by Owen, son of the local hedge-school master, Hugh O'Donnell. (School was taught in "hedge schools", secret classes, literally held in hedgerows, where a local scholar would teach their community, providing a thorough education including teaching in Greek and Latin.) The romantic Lieutenant Yolland is enchanted by the Irish names and culture and Maire (Owen's brother, Manus' fiancee) and Yolland fall in love. Yolland disappears, and as a punishment, Captain Lancey threatens to destroy several places in the County. Ironically, the names of these are read in English and Owen must translate them back into the Irish for the sake of the locals. In this context, the use of language has caused unwelcome distress.

The fact that Owen has translated the captain's orders into a language they can understand, has proven that this particular translation has raised one of the issues that Friel was trying to get across - the conflict between British and Irish and between progress and tradition. The British trying to 'anglicise' the Irish place-names support the progress, the Irish keeping the Irish place-names support tradition. Another example of the conflict between progress and tradition, is emphasised with the irony in a conversation between Hugh and Yolland. Hugh is condescending Yolland by dismissing William Wordsworth, saying, "Wordsworth? ...

No I'm afraid we " re not familiar with your literature, Lieutenant... We tend to overlook your island". The irony of this sentence is that contrary to Hugh's knowledge, within a relatively short period of time, the poetry of Wordsworth, would be read and recited by the majority of children in Ireland. The play is in many respects an intelligent and informative metaphor for the situation in Northern Ireland.

Friel was aiming to raise cultural awareness and d ispell social and political indifference in the North of Ireland. However, despite Friel's concerns with contemporary Ireland, the play is also an interesting fictional account of the Irish experience of British colonialism. The characters of the play help to form the mis-en-scene of Translations and help to show that the play is planted in a period of great significance in the colonial relationship between Ireland and England. The lifetime of Hugh and Jimmy Jack, the sixty years or so running up to 1833, bore witness to many important events in the transformation, or translation of Ireland from a rural Gaelic society to a modern colonial nation. In the foreground of the play Translations, the audience is presented with the British Ordnance Survey of Ireland, a process of mapping, renaming and 'anglicising' Ireland. In the subtext of the play, Friel portrays the clash between languages, and the use of education as a method of resolving the cultural and unequal relationship between the British and the Irish.

Translations is a gripping and challenging drama which both uses and explores the richness of language and history to raise issues Friel is trying to express in the play. Characters are faced with questions about themselves, in which the very words they speak, are central to understanding where they have come from and to where they are going. The practicalities of learning and speaking English are clear in Maire's desire to learn English so she can work in America. Friel beautifully captures the mystique and the danger, built-in between people who do not share a common language.

A translator forms a mirror, allowing each side to see into the world of the other. This could also be a metaphor for the structure of the play. Act One and Act Three are almost imperfect mirrors of each other. In the first act, we see the characters celebrating a christening.

In the third act, they have just been to a wake. In the first act, Sarah learns how to speak and communicate with others. In Act Three she is silenced because of the arrival of the colonisers. However, a translation cannot substitute for a genuine and non-conditional acceptance of another culture.

A translation is a flawed skill which rarely can do justice to both sides at once. Beyond the go-between translator, there is a smooth balance to be found between maintaining the integrity a community's own people, traditions and language and respecting the traditions and languages of others. 981 words.