The main character in the play is Pegeen, she is portrayed as a very strong female, she is not what you would expect given the time the play is set, a time when women were more often not represented equally. The play represents Ireland and a tradition of alcohol, religion and violence. The characters in the play show a lack of morals despite the often rural religious representation of Ireland, in Synge’s play there is a lack of morals about murder. When Christy arrives and tells them that he has murdered his own father the reaction of the other characters to the news is very shocking. When Christy says he has killed his father, Philly, another man drinking in the bar says “there’s a daring fellow”. (The Playboy of the Western World. P. 11). The characters are not shocked that he has killed his father and offer to help keep him safe from the law, Pegeen on hearing Christy has committed murder says that they should hire him in the bar; “That’d be a lad with sense of Solomon to have for a pot-boy”. (The Playboy of the Western World. P.14) Another shocking thing plot in the play is the when Pegeen,, who is engaged to Michael, tries to seduce the innocent character of Christy, she says to him, “you a fine, handsome young fellow with a …show more content…
In carrying out the survey they hoped that it would reflect their interests in Ireland, the maps would “benefit owners and occupiers of land by providing detailed information about estates and the valuation would provide relief from excessive taxation.” (Doherty, G.M. (2004). Page 14) There other motive for making the maps was political, by mapping Ireland and taking away the Irish place names they were taking away Ireland’s national identity, in a process of anglicanisation, which led to the decline in the Irish language and culture. The mapping was carried out by the British Military because maps were involved in “territorial expansion and warfare” ( Doherty, G.M. (2004). Page 36). Which is the reason the army had skilled cartographers. Thus the Ordinance survey mapping had a political and military agenda. In the essay Translations and a Paper Landscape: Between Fiction and History, the author says that the re-naming of the Irish place names was an “annihilation of a culture.” (Friel, Andrews, Barry, (1983). Page 118. ) For John Andrews, fiction is an unreliable source of information, as the facts can be altered to the bias of the writer. Regardless, Friel’s play Translations gives a more personal insight to a time in history with its use of fictional characters it brings to life the process of the Ordinance Survey mapping of Ireland dating back to the setting of the