Throughout Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan it is clear that Portia is a woman who is infatuated by the events and misfortunes of her past. When we first meet her in the opening scene it is clear that she is a distressed and deeply haunted woman “whose legacy is rich only in horror” (Dean, 1997). Her past is haunting her marriage, her relationship with her children and her day to day life. The continuing ghostly presence of her long departed brother immerses her back into the past rendering her present life unimportant and somewhat of a burden. Throughout the play events from the past rear their heads and it is clear that “Portia is fighting blind against a past kept hidden from her” (King, 1997).
Throughout the play the Belmont River plays a central role in connecting Portia to Gabriel and the harrowing events of the past that consume her. The river flows through the characters’ lives and is the location of Gabriel throughout the entire play. Portia regularly seeks solace at the riverside, “land she fiercely claims as her family's own and the scene of Gabriel's suicide fifteen years ago” (Fitzpatrick, 1997). When she meets Damus Halion by the banks of the river she tells him “I come here because I’ve always come here and I reckon I’ll be comin’ here long after I’m gone. I’ll lie here when I’m a ghost and smoke ghost cigarettes and watch ye earthlin’s goin’ about yeer pointless days” (1.3). The river and drowning are regularly talked about by not only Portia but other characters in the play. Portia’s mother, Marianne makes reference to both when she visits Portia “And where’s your children? Playin’ round the Belmont River, I suppose. You be lucky they don’t fall in and drown themselves one of these days” (1.5). It is clear that it ...
... middle of paper ...
...it has been destroyed by the twins past actions and Portia’s inability to let the past be the past.
“Her twin, the murky depths of the river, the past, all conspire to claim her. And they do” (Gardner, 2004).
Works Cited
Carr, Marina. Portia Coughlan. Meath: Gallery Press, 1998.
Dean, Joan Fitzpatrick. "Portia Coughlan, and: The Steward of Christendom (review)." Theatre Journal 49.2 (1997): 233-236.
Dunne, Stephen. Portia Coughlan. The Sydney Morning Herald, 2010. (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/09/1047144866696.html)
Gardner, Lyn. Death becomes her. The Guardian, 2004. http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004/nov/29/theatre
King, Robert L. Premieres and Adaptations. The North American Review 282.2 (1997): 48-52.
Maxwell, Margaret. ‘The Claim of Eternity': Language and Death in Marina Carr's" Portia Coughlan. Irish University Review (2007): 413-429
James Joyce is praised for his distinct stylistic purpose and furthermore for his writings in the art of free direct discourse. Though at times his language may seem muddled and incoherent, Joyce adds a single fixture to his narratives that conveys unity and creates meaning in the otherwise arbitrary dialogue. Within the story “The Dead”, the final and most recognizable piece in the collection Dubliners, the symbol of snow expresses a correlation with the central character and shows the drastic transformation of such a dynamic character in Gabriel Conroy. The symbol of snow serves as the catalyst that unifies mankind through the flawed essence of human nature, and shows progression in the narrow mind of Gabriel. Snow conveys the emission of the otherwise superficial thoughts of Gabriel and furthermore allows for the realization of the imperfections encompassed by mankind. Riquelme’s deconstruction of the text allows for the understanding that the story cannot be read in any specific way, but the variance in meaning, as well as understanding depends solely upon the readers’ perspective. Following a personal deconstruction of the text, it is reasonable to agree with Riquelme’s notions, while correspondingly proposing that the symbol of snow represents the flaws, and strengths of Gabriel, as well as the other characters as it effects all equally.
In Sandra Benitez’s novel, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, we get to know the lives and struggles of the residents of a small town in Mexico. Each character faces a conflict that affects the course of his or her life. The conflict I chose was the conflict that Marta was with her child and how her anger about the child made her do things she wished she could take back. It all starts with Marta and her sister. Marta is pregnant and thinks she can't take care of the kid so she wants an abortion. Then once Choyo Marta’s sister husband found out he insisted to take the kid once he is born. So then Marta decided to take care of the baby until it was born but then after time went by the husband of Choyo said that he wouldn't be able to take the kid because he was already going to have a child with Choyo. Once Marta was told this she let her anger get the best of her which then lead her to
...en. Probably the most striking commonality is how women relate through those by which they are haunted: just as Marisa recalls her cousin Norma who was committed to a mental hospital, Alejandro's death seriously impacts Amalia; Mrs. Peters recalls her dead baby in an effort to relate to Mrs. Wright, and Mrs. Hale remembers the woman Mrs. Wright was before her marriage. Both Glaspell and Moraga explore the universal theme of isolation and how relationships can create, in the case of Mrs. Wright, or diminish it, as with Marisa and Amalia.
“In place of the real mother, Enright had observed that Irish Writing traditionally either appointed ‘the iconised mother figure’, or posited an absence” (Mulhall, 2011, p. 69). Secondly, Enright uses the Irish motherhood as a very significant role in the story and the readers could relate to...
Portia’s Father had created a law that allowed her only to marry the man that chooses the correct casket. Her father had known what was right for her before he passed. He instituted a law that would guide her to be the person who she was meant to become. As well as to marry the man that she was destined to be with. The father-child relationship between Portia and her father, is one that cannot be beat. Even though her father was not actually with her, he had made it that she would become the best version of
"Ricorso: A Knowledge of Irish Literature." Ricorso: A Knowledge of Irish Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014.
"One day he caught a fish, a beautiful big big fish, and the man in the hotel boiled it for their dinner" (p.191). Little did Mrs. Malins know that those words issued from her feeble old lips so poignantly described the insensibility of the characters in James Joyce's The Dead toward their barren lives. The people portrayed in this novelette represented a wealthy Irish class in the early twentieth century, gathered at the house of the Morkan sisters for an annual tradition of feast and dance. Although all of the personages had, at one point, a potential for a beautiful life, sad memories of the past and the despair that invaded Ireland had eventually boiled all true senses and desires into a dull stew, destined to rot. Of particular interest is Gabriel Conroy, whom Joyce singularly bestowed a gift of introspection, though that did not save him from becoming yet another of the living dead.
Rose, Mary Beth. The Expense of Spirit: Love and Sexuality in English Renaissance Drama. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
...reversals that question the validity of that assumption. She believes that it is more important to recognize the fact that twins and other multiplies try to find ways to distinguish themselves from each other (p. 124).
She grew up alone, as her brothers ran away, living each day tormented by her thoughts and her family’s past. Her family’s past haunted her
In reading this story we find a woman tired of being a mother, a wife and of her life in general. "The sight of them made her so sad and sick she did not want to ever see them again" (35). Do you not see what she is thinking? They are sucking the life out of me. Why did I choose to get married? I could have been anything, instead I am the mother of this child and the wife of this man and am here to take care of their needs. Who will take care of my needs? She feels that she is some how letting herself ease away and needs to regain her identity. She soon isolates herself even more by moving into another room maybe thinking she will be able to find the part of herself she has lost. "She was a young queen, a virgin in a tower, she was the previous inhabitant, the girl with all the energies. She tried these personalities on like costumes" (38).
Keane, Patrick J. Yeats, Joyce, Ireland, and the Myth of the Devouring Female. MO: University of Missouri Press, 1988.
Logan, Thad Jenkins. "Twelfth Night: The Limits of Festivity." Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. N.p.: Rice University, 1982. 223-38. Vol. 22 of Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. Rpt. in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Caryl Churchill is one of England's most premier female, post-modern playwrights. She has strived throughout her career as theatrical personality to make the world question roles, stereotypes and issues that are dealt with everyday, like, violence, and political and sexual oppression. She has been part of many facets of performance throughout her almost sixty year career. Not only has she been a strong force on the stage, but has also had strong influences with radio and television. She is truly a talented woman dabbling in not only a Brechtian style of theatre that has been commented on time and time again, but also musicals of a sort.