How Does Friel Present Owen When
He First Enters The Play
At the top of page 26 we see Owen enter, we have not heard anything about him however the stage directions tell us a lot.
From these directions we know that Owen is the younger son of Hugh, he is smartly dressed-a city man and that he has a charming personality. From the first line he speaks we know he has been away from Baile Beag as he is looking for Hugh and his hedge-school. However he is being sarcastic and is trying to make a big entrance by not knowing where the hedge-school is when he clearly does.
The first we see of his charming manner is when he greets everyone at the hedge-school. He greets each person individually and with the appropriate greeting. For example “Doalty! Playful punch How are you boy? Jacobe, quid agis? Are you well?” For Doalty, the playful, mischievous type Owen gives him a playful punch well suited to Doalty’s character. For Jimmy he speaks Latin, again well suited to Jimmy’s character. However the greeting to Manus is not as everyone else’s. I feel that he does not know how to greet Manus and there is obviously some kind of friction in their relationship. There is also the possibility of Manus being jealous of Owen who is getting all the attention from Hugh and that he is being treated like a slave. For each person he gives a separate, individual greeting, this demonstrates to us his charming side by showing how he can manipulate people to make himself liked and everyone else feel wanted, however Manus can see what Owen is doing and that is why he didn’t get a very warming greeting.
