Human Failure in Philadelphia Here I come

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The Theme of Human Failure

Friels “Philadelphia here I come!” portrays an outstanding outlook on life in Ireland during the early 20th century. Throughout the play he deals with many themes, the main one being human failure. Almost every character in the play has dealt with some sort of failure. Each character has disappointment in some shape or form. Gar has failed in his relationship with his father and in his relationship with Katie Doogan. Gar and his failed relationship with his father is not the only failure in the play. The play is packed full of failure from front to back. Master Boyle, the teacher is an alcoholic and resorts to telling fictional stories of him being offered a teaching post in Boston, he adds to the theme escapist fantasy. The Boys also add to the escapist fantasy by imagining stories about them and their success with women.  Friel uses techniques such as the flashback technique, stream of consciousness, comedy and buffoonery, the two Gars and the reference to the French revolution. All of these help to explore human failure in the play.

The main issue in the play is Gars relationship with his father. Throughout the play we get a real idea of how Gar feels about his Father S.B. From the start of the play we see both public and private refer to S.B. as screwballs. We immediately see that there is an bitterness between Gar and his father. Gar hates his father for many reasons but his relationship with him has a potential to be a love-hate relationship, but neither Gar nor S.B. has the courage to reveal their true feelings for each other. Instead the relationship was let build up for 25 years Gar finally making the decision to get away from it and move to Philadelphia. The dilemma that arises from Gar moving to Philadelphia is that he will never be able to have a proper life there as he has in Ballybeg, so much built up feelings deep down that he will not be content with until the feelings are gone. Its one of the plays biggest ironies that if Gar or S.B. expresses their feelings the Gar would probably not move to Philadelphia. We see this as Gar searches for any excuse not to depart Ballybeg for Philadelphia when he is talking to his father in the usual functional, monetary way. We see by privates reaction that public is dying for S.B. to open up and give him a reason to stay. In episode one, we see Private outburst as Gar and S.B. are eating dinner. Private is saying what Public wishes he could say but he doesn’t have the courage to say it:

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“I’m leaving you forever; I’m going to Philadelphia to work in a hotel. And you know why I’m going screwballs, don’t you. Because I’m twenty five and you treat me as if I was five. I can’t even order a dozen loaves without getting your permission….. But worse far worse than that Screwballs, because we embarrass one another”.

Private releases all the anger that has built up inside him. We know that these are the feelings public has, yet he does not have the courage to say anything to his father because anything that is more than the ...

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