History is a kind of story-telling. Compare and contrast the ways in which Friel and Williams present characters who offer their own histories and concept of truth in Making History and A Streetcar Named Desire.

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“History is a kind of story-telling.” Compare and contrast the ways in which Friel and Williams present characters who offer their own histories and concept of truth in Making History and A Streetcar Named Desire. Your response should consider interpretations and should include reflections on the dramatic and theatrical aspects of the texts.    Both ‘Making History’ and ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ witness the characters showing the audience different perceptions of their pasts by presenting both the truth and their histories differently to the actuality.   At the time of ‘Making History’s’ writing (1987-8), the political situation in Northern Ireland was as deadlocked as in the post 1968 Troubles. The way Friel writes about O’Neill in Making History was affected by what was happening in the 1980s. In the late 1500s O’Neill was attempting to make Ireland independent, and in the 1980s Northern Ireland was still ruled by Britain. Friel shows the truth of O’Neill’s past to possibly rationalise why Ireland was still not completely independent. Unlike ‘Making History’, which was still affected by the same problems of the late 1500s many years on, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ was written much closer to the time it was set. Written in 1947, the play dramatizes the conflict between fading Southern belle Blanche and Polish immigrant Stanley, who is determined to capture and consolidate his version of the American Dream. The play is set in the mid-1940s and so Williams tries to capture the true essence of post war New Orleans. Blanche was from the antebellum era and a relic of a time before the Civil War had divided America, originating from an old, aristocratic rural culture where whites presided over a slave economy and owned plantations.   In ‘Making History’, O’Neill is the maker of historical events and Lombard the maker of his written history – and their ideas clash since they both have different ideas regarding how his history should be written. Lombard remarks that ‘now is the time for a hero’, and suggests that ‘that’s the stuff of another history for another time’ when referring to the true depiction of O’Neill’s character. This is reflective of the late 1500s which saw ideological struggles between the
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Catholic Church and Protestant Reformism. O’Neill’s history is exaggerated by Lombard to present him as a great leader who would have united support to challenge Britain’s monarchy regarding Irish Independence. Lombard purposely interpreted and moulded history to suit the Church’s ideological ends and present O’Neill as a ‘national hero’. Tony Coult suggests that ‘The real makers of history, Friel invites us to reflect, might well be historians.’ Friel uses these opposing thoughts on history shared by O’Neill and Lombard to change the way the audience perceive the historical events in question, rendering the play a revisionist history. Lombard plays the ...

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