Brian Friel's "Translations"
'Translations' by Brian Friel can be appreciated and understood
without knowledge of Irelands social, political and linguistic
history. It can be enjoyed simply as a drama that incorporates comedy,
tragedy and romance. However, with a greater understanding of Irelands
history, such as the effect the 'great famine' had on the ordinary
people of Ireland the play *
In 'Translations' the people of Baile Beag show hostility towards the
English army who have been sent to anglicise the place names of the
area. For hundreds of years the English had made incursions in to
Ireland. Many rebellions followed the conquest of Ireland, after which
Queen Mary Tudor became the Queen of England and Ireland and the
people of Ireland came under the control of the British government.
There were attempts in the C16 to settle English colonies in Lenster
and Munster but these were unsuccessful. In the C17 land was taken
from Irish Earls and divided between Scottish Presbyterians. Rebellion
followed in the reign of Charles 1 and this took the form of Catholic...
Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000. Print.
Cahill begins his discussion of the Irish people in an extensive reference to Medh, the Queen of Connacht. Through her story we are first shown the aggressive spirit and strength of the Irish people. As Cahill relays, no barbarian tribe or nation was feared like the Irish when it came to the slave trade, and it is through this vein of interaction- the slave trade- that a young man by the name of Patricius is introduced to the realm of Unholy Ireland. Taken from his home in Romanized Briton, he is subject to several years of slavery in the most unsavory of conditions. These conditions serve as a catalyst for his spiritual enlightenment and ultimately that of the Irish peoples (38).
"Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years and he had never questioned the joy of the midnight runs, nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames…never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think…and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do! (Ray Bradbury-Fahrenheit 451)". Was Guy Montag the same person at both the beginning and end of Fahrenheit 451? The answer to this question is a definite no. Montag transformed dramatically throughout the story. He started as a person of ignorance, but ended a man of enlightenment and intelligence. Montag embarked on his journey as a fireman who lived to burn and destroy books, but returned a crusader who lived to save them.
In The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village, renowned scholar Eamonn Duffy investigates the English Reformation. Duffy pears through the eyes of the priest of a small, remote village in Southwestern England. Using Sir Christopher Trichay’s records of the parish, Duffy illustrates an image of Reformation opposite of what is predominantly assumed. Duffy argues the transformation that took place between 1530 and 1570, through the transition of four monarchs, was much more gradual that many interpret. Even though state mandate religious change affected the community of Morebath, the change did not ensue the violence that is often construed with the Reformation. Sir Christopher Trichay’s leadership and his portrayal of community life, the development and removal of St. Sidwell, and the participation in the church through stores develop Duffy’s argument of appeasement rather than violence during the English Reformation.
With a spout of kerosene and a flick of a match, a fireman sets fire to a house and all the books inside it, not waiting for the heat to reach 451 degrees farhenheit; the temperature in which it is said books ignite. This may seem a strange thing, a fireman setting fire, but in the futuristic world author Ray Bradbury created in his work Farhenheit 451(1951) this is the norm. A fireman's job is to hunt those with books and set destroy all the books with thier flames. In the Bradbury's book, the government has deemed books and all who possess them public enemy Number One, and society has accepted that with no questions asked. Books represent knowledge, difference of opinion and ideals that are now unsavory in the public's eye.
Don’t worry, be happy, or at least that’s what everyone in Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451 thought. No matter what was going on around them, war, crime, or death, they were always happy… Or were they? Ray Bradbury wrote books about censorship in society forming around being censored totally or partially from books and television. In Fahrenheit 451 the main character, Montag, is a fireman whose job it is to burn books to keep the public from reading then and coming up with their own thoughts and ideas and not the ideas that the government puts in their heads. Wile he is burning books one day he opens one to read it and becomes obsessed with reading books. He turns on his fire chief and burns him, and goes to live with people who also read books and memorize them so that they can be reprinted then society is ready for them again. Three people that show that they are happy on the outside but are not truly happy are Montag, Mildred and Mrs. Phelps.
Professor Faber is second mentor Montag has ever had. He teaches Montag about books, and how they are important in people’s lives. Faber calls Montag names because of his lack of common sense. Montag has recently become interested in reading and he is looking toward Faber for more information. Faber is an interesting man. He wants everyone to see how society really is, but he says that he is a coward who would not speak out against book burning when they still could have stopped it.
In pages 15-32, Montag encountered many events that impacted his thoughts, actions, and feelings. One of the events that he encountered was when Clarisse decided to rub the dandelion under Montag’s chin to see if he’s actually in love (Page 19). Although it was just a little fun activity that Clarisse came up with, the result both surprised and upset Montag, who thought he was definitely in love with the woman he married. The fact that he was shocked was demonstrated when he wanted to lie to both Clarisse and himself by saying: “I am, very much in love” and tried to make a facial expression to match his statement (page 20), which he failed to make. Furthermore, he also blamed the outcome on the dandelion, which shows his reaction and feelings
Don't expect anything linear when it comes out of the insubordinate, tortuous mind of the Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin, who in his last sumptuously demented tale, “The Forbidden Room”, had the contribution of the newcomer Evan Johnson as co-writer and co-director. As in the majority of his past works, the film masterfully evokes the black-and-white silent classics and Technicolor fantasies in order to create a layered story that despite the numerous sinister characters and baffling interactions among them, can be summarized as a man desperately looking for a woman. A jocose spirit is present since its very beginning when a man wearing a robe discourses about how to take a bath. This hilarious little dissertation leads us to the central
“Just as Spanish would have been a danger language for me to have used at the start of my education, so black English would be a dangerous language to use in the schooling of teenagers for whom it reinforces feelings of public separateness.” When Rodriguez says this, it appeals to the reader’s emotions as well as logic. Rodriguez effectively uses logos and pathos to convey his message that speaking a different language than what’s around you increases separateness in the public. “Just as Spanish would have been a danger language for me to have used at the start of my education…” This part of the quote appealing to logos and saying that if Rodriguez would have used Spanish when he went to school then he would not have made the friends he had,
The book The Translator tells the story of a brave man, Daoud “David” Hari, who came face-to-face with genocide. It is a perspective that is rarely ever seen and tells us of events that we hope to never see. Time and time again, David makes the choice to stand up for what he believes in – despite everyone and everything around him trying to force him in the opposite direction. David helps many people in many different ways, but he is so successful at doing so because he knows his role. He knows what he is good at and what he can do, because of this, he is very good at helping those in need. In the back of the book, we are asked a few different questions:
In Stephen King’s essay, “On Writing” he stresses the importance of reading as an invaluable tool to improve one’s writing. However, why does being a good writer matter to someone who is not a writer? In the New York Times article, “What Good Writing Indicates, and Doesn’t,” Brock Haussamen writes that “good writing—writing that is clear and interesting and free of most surface errors—is a reliable indicator of certain job-rated abilities.” Enhanced writing skills, developed by extensive reading, showcase job-related abilities, improve written and verbal communication skills and can lead to advancement in the workplace.
Learning can be a struggle for those who have a difficult time understanding right away. Some students just give up if they can’t figure it out. In his essay, “A Hunger for Books,” noted Richard Wright explains what it felt like when he first discovered the power of writing. Wright mentions he was denied the education, but when he learned he found a new hunger (4). As Wright points out, learning gave him a new hunger. When I was younger, I felt that if I didn’t understand something, then just to give up on it all together. But, after awhile I learned if I continued to keep trying then I will finally got it. It made learning increasingly more interesting.
I don’t know how history shapes a language, but I know that languages do change over time. When Jamila Lyiscott in “3 Ways to Speak English” says, “Now you may think that it is ignorant to speak broken English. But I’m here to tell you that even ‘articulate’ Americans sound foolish to the British.” It means that every language even a broken language is a language to someone and it has to mean to them. Also, people might interpret a word a different way than other people will because of their original language that might never really get the whole understanding. New words are made every day so our language is ever so vastly changing every single day, and it has been changing since the day our language was made. When she says that she is “articulate”
Translations are essential to us and our culture, because through ancient documents, inscriptions and books, historians and archeologists reconstruct the ancient societies and civilizations, as well as the story of our forefathers and the history of the entire human race. They allow communication between us and different countries and nations, whose language might be different from ours and this may create difficulties in being able to understand each other. However, translators make this possible as they are the mediators between two different cultures. The need for translations is massive, from both a social and political outlook. According to David Katan’s Translating Cultures, “The translator is a bilingual mediating agent between monolingual communication participants in two different language communities” (16). Therefore, for a translation to succeed translators have to be not only bilingual, but also bicultural. A translator is furthermore put in an exclusive but at the same time, difficult position because it is his responsibility to clarify certain ideas within cultural and natural boundaries. This can be done by keeping the same exact (literal) meaning. Interpreting and translating a text is not a simple and easy task; it takes time and is also challenging, because “the translator cannot merely search for equivalent words in the target language to render the meaning of the source” (Dingwaney and Maier, 3). Up until today there are many translations of ancient works and books, such as the Odyssey; and so, there is a wide range for people to choose from. This choice must be taken with the most care because some may be exceptionally good at communicating the essence of the original text while others ...