Margaret Thatcher once said, “Crime is crime is crime it’s not political it’s crime.” In 1981, the IRA prisoners started the second hunger strike in the Maze prison because the prisoners wanted to be recognized as prisoners of war. In Northern Ireland, the British government planned to isolate, criminalize, and demoralize the IRA. Some Mother’s Son appeals to the personal side of the argument by showing how one person can affect their whole family and then some. Hunger depicts the personal side as well, but it shows by making the audience think deeply through silences. In Some Mother’s Son, the hunger strike is shown through multiple sources mostly Bobby Sands, Gerard Quigley, and Francis Hughes. Gerard Quigley and Francis Hughes got caught
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They were the right not to wear a prison uniform, the right not to do prison work, the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits, the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week, full restoration of remission lost through the protest. When they proposed these demands they were wearing just blankets and living in their own filth. In Some Mother’s Son, Francis Higgins says, “I am a prisoner of war I refuse to wear a criminal uniform” as he is getting processed into the jail. All they wanted was to wear their own casual clothes that they would wear around Belfast like they used to. When they thought they reached a compromise on this issue, they were in fact duped. It is shown perfectly in Hunger, when the prisoners are lining up to get what they thought was their clothes, they were actually getting ugly plaid outfits with conflicting colors that made them look like clowns. The guards handing out the uniforms were laughing as each prisoner came up with hope in their eyes only to see what they were getting and then getting laughed at. As each prisoner looked at the ugly folded uniform on their bed in their clean room they waited. They waited to see what their leader, Bobby Sands, would do. Soon enough the place erupted with Bobby Sands being the first to destroy his room in protest of the ugly
They were the right not to wear a prison uniform, the right not to do prison work, the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits, the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week, full restoration of remission lost through the protest. When they proposed these demands they were wearing just blankets and living in their own filth. In Some Mother’s Son, Francis Higgins says, “I am a prisoner of war I refuse to wear a criminal uniform” as he is getting processed into the jail. All they wanted was to wear their own casual clothes that they would wear around Belfast like they used to. When they thought they reached a compromise on this issue, they were in fact duped. It is shown perfectly in Hunger, when the prisoners are lining up to get what they thought was their clothes, they were actually getting ugly plaid outfits with conflicting colors that made them look like clowns. The guards handing out the uniforms were laughing as each prisoner came up with hope in their eyes only to see what they were getting and then getting laughed at. As each prisoner looked at the ugly folded uniform on their bed in their clean room they waited. They waited to see what their leader, Bobby Sands, would do. Soon enough the place erupted with Bobby Sands being the first to destroy his room in protest of the ugly