Cartography in Brian Friel's Translations
Brian Friel's play Translations deals with an essential feature of post-colonialism: cultural translation, or the struggle of the Irish people at the crossroads between their traditional identity and the newly acquired English identity. The action of the play is set in 1833 in a rural community from County Donegal. The plot is simple: a detachment of Royal Engineers from the British Army is sent to make an Ordnance Survey map of the local landscape in Donegal. This military mission is disguised as a benign exercise in geographical linguistics, its actual purpose being the transcription of Gaelic place names into English. Thus, the old Irish space is to be re-mapped as the old place names are replaced with new ones. The attempt to create a new cartography obviously threatens the identity of the Irish cultural space. The re-naming of the territories and the re-mapping of the traditional world is part of the imperialist attempt to assimilate the old culture into the new one. The new map of the Irish territories is thus obviously much more than a mere paper representation: it is a complete reconfiguration of the traditional world. The result is a palimpsestic culture, formed by the traces of the old Irish culture and the elements of
Once more however, the cultural translation fails: despite the fact that Yolland loves the Irish culture and wants to be integrated in it, he realizes that this is not possible, and that the essence of Irishness will always elude his understanding, no matter what he does. The only thing that results from the merger of the two cultures is a new palimpsestic territory where two texts meet without actually communicating. "(Friel) Friel however makes it clear that language is impossible to translate with all its contents, so that that cultural exchange might be realized eventually. Thus, Yolland stammers in his speech and is hesitant about the purpose of this mission, feeling the brutal intrusion it makes in the lives of the Irish county: 'I--I--I've nothing to say--really and I feel very foolish to--to--to be working here and not to speak your language and I hope we're not too--too crude an intrusion on your lives'. Yolland: Anna na mBreag's poteen and I'll decode it yet. He plainly states the purpose of the British arrival on the Irish territory, genuinely believing in the right of the English to rename and reconstruct the Irish space. Thus, Owen's and Yolland's enthusiasm about their linguistic recreations and re-mappings, soon fade when they realize that the translation between the two cultures eventually fails: "Owen: A christening! Yolland: A thousand baptisms! Welcome to Eden! Owen: Eden's right! We name a thing and--bang!--it leaps into existence! Yolland: Each name a perfect equation with its roots. There is no translation as such between the two cultures, and no actual dialogue. The play also begins symbolically with the baptizing of a new-born child, to allude to the sacred act of naming once more. He defends the Irish language to the point that he cannot find any equivalents for the Irish words in English, so as to draft his map. "(Friel) The christening act is thus useless, as the two cultures remain as separate as ever. Thus, Friel's play significantly situates the linguistic map at the core of a poignant dilemma: the possibility of cultural translation. The introductory speech Yolland makes to the local people is in blatant opposition to the one made by Captain Lancey. The act of naming something is usually seen as a sacred ritual, as it hints to the Christian myth of creation through the Logos.
Common topics in this essay:
Majesty's Government,
Maire English,
King's EnglishFriel,
Lancey Yolland,
English Irish,
Yolland Anna,
Captain Lancey's,
British Irish,
Irish I'd,
Lancey British,
cultural translation,
irish people,
irish space,
linguistic map,
irish culture,
captain lancey,
result palimpsestic culture,
british army,
act naming,
traditional world,
cultural exchange,
captain lancey yolland,
re-mapping irish space,
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Acceptance Essays
