Anglicisation as Linguistic Violence: Brian Friel’s ‘Translations’ and the Question of Cultural Identity — A Literary Analysis
Brian Friel’s Translations presents cultural identity as an ongoing discourse. Set in 1833, the play deals with the cultural effects of the English colonising mission in Ireland—namely, the systemic dismantling and erasure of Gaelic culture via (i) the replacement of Irish hedge-schools by English language schools and (ii) the Ordnance Survey, which sought to ‘standardise’ Gaelic maps through the anglicisation of local Gaelic place-names. In response to the inevitability of ‘cartographic violence’, Friel argues for the ‘renewing of images’ as a way for victims of colonialism to reclaim their cultural identity from the English (Howard 2010, 145; Friel 1981, 88). The play shifts constantly between two main modes of thought: the poststructuralist thought, which treats names, and language, as an arbitrary construct, and the essentialist thought, which asserts the importance of names, and language, as intrinsic to personal and cultural identity. As a result, Friel successfully breaks away from the sic transit gloria attitude to, ultimately, present cultural identity as a matter of consciousness caught in an endless process of negotiation and reform.
The play showcases cultural identity as a discourse through the voice of Hugh who combines the romantic rhetoric with a more analytic one. For instance, in Act Two, Scene One, Hugh describes Irish as a ‘rich’ language ‘full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception—a syntax opulent with tomorrows’ (Friel, 51). ‘Mythologies’, ‘fantasy’, ‘hope’ are romantic terms which carry a relatively positive, albeit abstract, connotation, whereas ‘syntax’ is a more scientific-sounding term, void of emotional weight. Moreover, the word ‘self-deception’ carries a negative connotation that is absent in all the other terms. This line exemplifies the nature of language as a convoluted discourse, opulent with meanings, ambiguities and contradictions. Furthermore, the word ‘syntax’ gives weight and palpability to the elevated language, which in turn immunises the romantic passage against accusations of blind infatuation with the irrevocable past.
This is further exemplified in the next line wherein Hugh proposes that language is not intrinsically linked to cultural identity: ‘It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to…inevitabilities’ (52). It is ironic that something as intricate and refined as a ‘[language] opulent with tomorrows’ can be explained away merely as an inevitable consequence of a prosaic way of life (‘mud cabins and a diet of potatoes’). But in so doing, Hugh foregrounds the notion that language is dependent on culture, not the other way around. This means that our human need for clarity and deeper meaning has propelled us to construct extensive lists of signifiers and abstractions so that we may identify what we mean and socialise these meanings as effectively as our ‘linguistic contour[s]’ may allow. Here, the play implies that life, with all its ambiguities and uncertainties, is indeed ‘incipient poetry’ (36) and sense is to be made from the act of living.
Cultural identity then is not dependent on language. Rather, language should be understood as a direct response to culture. According to Baker (2000, 272) in ‘The Language Question and Brian Friel’s Translations’, language is always going through an incessant process of modification to meet the ‘special needs’ of a given culture. This mutability of language parallels a postcolonial approach to cartography, which views maps as ‘part of a process, something to be modified through use, rather than an end product or commodity’ (Howard, 146). In the line, ‘a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of…fact’ (Friel, 52), Friel warns us against our fixation on a past that is ill-suited for a world that has been irrevocably translated. The term ‘linguistic contour’ likens language to geography—in this way, Friel succinctly encapsulates not only the threat of ‘geographical violence’ (Said 1993, cited in Howard 2010, 144) wielded by the occupying power but also the loss of navigational instinct within one’s own culture, which has been invalidated by the enforced language of the oppressors.
In the voice of Hugh, Friel calls this displacement a ‘sense of exclusion, of being cut off from a life here’ (52). Hugh, however, does not lament on his displacement, lest he ‘fossilise[s]’ (88), as Jimmy Jack does, but seems to genuinely believe that anyone, even Yolland, can ‘find access’ (52) to the Gaelic culture, even though it is being systematically eroded by the English. Yolland himself, however, suspects that the Gaelic culture will ‘always elude’ him even if he were to ‘learn the password’ (48). This then points to the essentialist attitude towards language as intrinsic to cultural identity, a stark contrast to Hugh’s poststructuralist understanding of language as ‘signals, counters’ and ‘not immortal’ (52).
According to Wheaton, ‘The recognition of identity begins with naming. As words in language bestow identity by giving different labels to distinct items, naming establishes the birth of personal identity’ (2001, 237). Owen’s abrupt reclaiming of his name from the bastardised English version can be read as a self-identification with his national consciousness, which foreshadows his decision to join the resistance against the English later in the play. However, this reading problematises the play as it undermines Friel’s point against ‘propagandistically supporting the cause of political nationalism’ (Kearney 1987, 510). It is then perhaps more logical to read Owen as an exemplification of Fanon’s identity crisis (1967).
Owen, ‘the native intellectual’ (Fanon 1967, 178), deviates from his own culture due to circumstantial pressures and returns as the assimilated man, but eventually he is ‘disturbed’ (179) as he recalls the culture and customs of which he is no longer a part (Friel, 53). Finally, Owen enters the ‘fighting phase’ (Fanon, 179) when he grows to value his culture and makes a revolutionary return (Friel, 54). Owen swings, like a possessed Foucault pendulum, from actively ridding Ireland of its place-names to forcefully re-establishing his Irish identity—‘Owen: (explodes) George! For God’s sake! My name is not Roland!’ (54)—even though it has been shown previously that he does not care what he is called, and then not two pages later, he swings back again to his colonialist attitude by telling Manus to ‘speak in English’ (56). This constant shift in Owen’s character foregrounds cultural identity as a continuous discourse between different aspects of the self, as well as between the self and the social world.
In the same vein, that Hugh ‘always promises three points and he never gets beyond A and B’ (52) is perhaps Friel’s way of showcasing that language, and the act of sense-making, is never finished. Just as ‘maps in whatever form they appear are in a continual process of being reformed’ (Howard, 145), we must never cease to engage with our ‘linguistic contour’ (Friel, 52) because ‘once we do, we fossilise’ (88).
In ‘The Question of Cultural Identity’, Stuart Hall defines the translation of cultural identity as ‘formations which cut across and intersect natural frontiers, and which are composed of people who have been dispersed forever from their homelands’ (Hall 1992, 277). While Hall focuses on the assimilation of the ethnic minority in the country of their oppressors, his definition of cultural translation is applicable to Hugh’s own understanding of what he calls ‘inevitabilities’ (Friel, 51).
In line with Hall’s definition, Hugh actively renounces ‘the dream or ambition of rediscovering any kind of “lost” cultural purity, or ethnic absolutism’ (Hall, 310). This illusion of a return to the past is perhaps what Hugh means by ‘self-deception’ (Friel, 51). Through the voice of Hugh, Friel posits that people are a product of interlocking histories and cultures, irrevocably translated, and therefore they must look towards the future and continue to renew the ‘images of the past embodied in language’ (88), because by making these representations their own, victims of colonialism can assert their identities, and their presence, in the act of ‘speaking back’ to the colonisers.
In conclusion, Brian Friel uses the contradictions in language and in characterisation to create a discourse which pushes past the sic transit gloria mentality to provide an alternative mode of liberation — one that does not look to the past but nevertheless embraces it, as it is these ‘images of the past embodied in language’ that define what we are and what we will become. Translations reminds us that we are shaped by the ‘inevitabilities’ of circumstance; be they the land, the people, or the ideas we internalise and distort. Equally, the play is also about empowerment and agency, about what we can do to make this postcolonial world our new home. In this sense, Brian Friel’s Translations tells us that the future is ‘incipient poetry’—the words we use and the actions we take to shape the ‘linguistic contour’ of the present will determine the trajectory of our ‘tomorrows’.
Works Cited
Baker, C., 2000. ‘“It’s the same me, isn’t it?”: The Language Question and Brian Friel's Translations’, Midwest Quarterly, 41(3), pp. 264–275.
Fanon, F., 1967. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by C. Farrington. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Friel, B., [1981] 2000. Translations. London: Faber and Faber.
Hall, S., 1992. The Question of Cultural Identity. In: S. Hall, D. Held & T. McGrew, eds. 1992. Modernity and Its Futures. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 274–314.
Howard, D., 2010. Cartographies and Visualization. In: S. Chew & D. Richards, eds. 2010. A Concise Companion to Postcolonial Literature. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. Chapter 7, pp. 141–161.
Kearney, R., 1987. ‘Friel and the Politics of Language Play’, Massachusetts Review, 28, pp.23–39.
Wheaton, S. E., 2001. ‘Idioms of Change: The Structuring of Cultural Identities through Language in Friel’s Translations’, Colby Quarterly, 37(3), pp.235–246. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq/vol37/iss3/5.
Originally written for ‘Postcolonial and World Literature in English’ (Nov 2019)
