Doalty means, “I deny, oppose, refuse and renounce”! This is a very powerful name and is suitable to Doalty’s character; though his resistance to the English is mainly harmless and passive in the first act, and he does not appear in the second, the third act illustrates just how much knowledge has given Doalty power; his friendship with the Doalty twins implicates him in their illegal activities and makes him, like his name, deny, oppose, refuse and renounce the English.
Captain Lancey’s name and actions, especially in Act Three, reminds us of the powerful lance, a weapon of war and an instrument of death; while the peaceful and endearing Lieutenant Yolland is a combination of ‘old’ and ‘land’, since he loves Ireland, and ‘Yola’, the name of the first wave of English settlers in Ireland, who, appropriately, gradually merged with the Irish, adopting Irish language and customs as Yolland does. Indeed, Yolland, undoubtedly unknowingly, adopts through convergence patterns of speech which fit in more closely with those of Owen’s, Hugh’s and Maire’s, seeking to show solidarity and gain approval in his dealings with these others whom he looks up to. For example, he preserves the Irish place names, and in order to woo Maire speaks the Irish place names which he loves and has learnt off by heart. However, when Yolland tries to do this to Manus, it backfires, as he perceives it as patronising (II.1). Lancey retains his authority exactly through opposing this, by emphasising the difference between himself and the community. It is this which gives him power. In Act Three for example, he makes Owen translate the Irish place names into English. This is known as maintenance. Both convergence and maintenance are aspects of socio-linguistics which refer to the identify the use of a name affords a place or a person. In addition to this, Lancey and Yolland show us how symmetrical and a-symmetrical systems of address or introductions occur. For example, in I.1., ‘Captain Lancey’ is introduced as such to make the characters feel his authority, but then addressed by Yolland as ‘George’ to illustrate the degree of familiarity between the pair. This has wider connotations with perception of social rank and stature for all the characters – I’m sure they couldn’t fail to feel their inferiority, both to a captain, and to a lieutenant who is able to call a captain ‘George’.
Owen’s name is perhaps the most important because it gets so confused by the English. Manus exclaims in Act One “They call you Roland! They both call you Roland!” And Owen, echoing Juliet’s “That which we call a rose, | By any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet II.2.) replies “It’s only a name. It’s the same me isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?” At first, even Manus agrees – “Indeed it is. It’s the same Owen” – but by II.1, just a few days later, and during a process in the play through which Owen changes to become more pro-Irish and anti-English than he was before, he decides that his name is important and explodes at Yolland, demanding to be called by his proper name. Though they both find this absurd at the time and laugh hilariously (an effect of the poteen), implicit in their reaction is a mocking of the name book thereafter, a clear lack of respect for their work, and a cessation of viewing it as important or even necessary. This shows the power of language; it has the ability to change meaning and identities through something seemingly as simple as a name, things which have great effect both on individual and place. The fact remains that renaming the Irish people and places on the part of the English is a powerful resource for a dominant group which wishes to dominate and marginalize their inferiors. This is also a demonstration in the play of multi-faceted identity. Owen faces a crisis of identity when he realise his role in destroying the identity of Baile Baeg (incidentally, this means ‘little home’), and wishes to change it. This shift is, again, displayed through the language he uses, and the way he is so much more disrespectful to Lancey at the end of the play than at the start.
Though this is all very well, we have no way of actually knowing if the characters know themselves what their names mean; Prospero almost certainly does, because of his vast knowledge and reading, and Manus, Hugh, and Jimmy Jack Cassey or the Infant Prodigy have such a good awareness of Greek and Latin that they almost certainly do as well. This may empower them more than a character like Lancey who may make no connections between his power over the Irish and his name. Additionally, naming and naming practises are a recurrent theme especially in Translations, showing how loss of language is powerful and can be viewed as loss of cultural identity. This has wider implications for social (the marriages), ethical (are Lancey/Prospero justified in their actions at the end of the plays?), political (who is truly Lord over the lands?) and national identities.
The writers of The Tempest and Translations also present links between language and power through speeches and rhetoric in the plays. These give power to the speaker through their audience’s attention to their words or language. Take the example of Prospero’s many speeches in The Tempest. He clearly has a way with words, having, as Miranda puts it, a tale that “would cure deafness” (I.1.106). Becoming a demagogue means not only that people listen to you when you speak, because of your authority, but also that they actively seek out opportunities of listening to you, and are enraptured when they do. Interestingly though, Prospero’s longest speech is a soliloquy in V.1. where he borrows Golding’s 1567 translation of the sorceress Medea’s speech in the 7th book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (particularly lines 265-77). This is even more interesting because it is here, in this speech, that Shakespeare reveals the limitations of his power; that his magic is of the ‘rough’ variety (I.1.50). This has been hinted at before when we learn that Prospero had to wait for the influences of “A most auspicious star” (I.1.182) in order to be able to draw the court to the Island and have them under his influences. The non-repentance of Antonio, Sebastian, Stephano and Trinculo also all measure the extent of Prospero’s power. While he is able to drive them to distraction, he is unable to make them repent form their sins; he does not truly forgive his brother when he says “…I do forgive | Thy rankest fault – all of them” (V.1.131-2), but simply ignores his actions because he cannot do anything about it. Antonio has not changed and Prospero knows it. Given a second chance his brother would do the same. As C. S. Lewis puts it in The Problem of Pain (Chapter VIII: Hell; page 97; published Fount 1968):
“To condone an evil is simply to ignore it, as if it were true. But forgiveness needs to be accepted as well as offered if it is to be complete: and a man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness”.
In this way, Antonio cannot be forgiven, even if Prospero truly wanted to. Here then is Prospero’s failure. “It is the point at which his art stops short” (The New Penguin Shakespeare, Introduction, p.29, by T. J. B. Spencer), and language is powerless to help him.
The point of all this is that his name, which empowers him, his language, which empowers him, and all else, is not the ultimate source of his power; his magic is; and because it is limited, so he is limited. Here then, the writer of The Tempest has presented the links between language and power, but has weakened them through he involvement of another force – magic. Importantly though, it is only through language that we learn the involvement of this greater force, and it’s restrictions.
However, it is significant that this is revealed to us in a speech which no one else can hear. It is as if he is keeping it a secret; if no one else knows, or hears, it cannot be generally known. Therefore, he ironically retains the full extent of his power, though admitting it’s weaknesses, exactly because he chooses to deliver it in a subtle and discrete way in the language he uses, and at a time where no one will remember. He almost slips it in where no one will notice, not even readers who read and re-read The Tempest again and again.
The great demagogue in Translations is Hugh. We know he is important even before he enters because the other characters speak about him so much; no fewer than 11 times in effect. His speeches serve a rather different purpose to Prospero’s; Hugh’s speeches, which are altogether shorter, serve as the philosophising force behind the play. Examples include him discussing the nature of Irish:
“[to Yolland] You’ll find, sir, that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives. I suppose you could call us a spiritual people.”
And again;
“…it us a rich language, lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception – a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to… inevitabilities.” (Both II.1.)
Friel is not original in his ideas however. Irish novelist James Joyce presents similar ideas to Hugh in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), where the main character, Stephen Dedalus, thinks about how English has replaced Irish in Ireland, but of how the Irish people and writers have learned to master it. Many other Irish literati have taken this theme also – in fact, Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney wrote a poem where he meets the ghost of James Joyce who advises him on art and language (Station Island part XII, pub. Faber & Faber, 1984). Clearly then, language for the Irish is a national preoccupation; and it is these cultural-linguistic aspects of language that involve Hugh. The sense he speaks gives him the authority power to be listened to and respected by Yolland, even if he is not completely understood. This is quite an evident link between language and power for Friel, and for us. Eventually, everybody but Lancey realises that by changing the place names from English to Irish – and we have already shown how names are so important, because of their meanings – they are losing their identities and histories. Yolland insists on ‘Tobair Vree’ retaining its name, even though – indeed, because – Owen still knows the story behind it and how it got its name.
Following on from the power afforded language through speeches, power is also afforded the speaker through language when they use persuasive discourse. The clearest example of this is the difference between Ariel and Caliban in The Tempest. These two characters share the common interest of their freedom but go about trying to get it in different ways. Most notably, Ariel is sycophantic to Prospero, trying to win his freedom by using subtly persuasive language. For example:
“All hail, great master! Grave hail, sir! I come
To answer thy best pleasure, be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive in the fire, to ride
On curled clouds. To thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.” (I.2.189-194)
This gains him/her a lot. It makes him/her Prospero’s ‘bird’, ‘sweet thing’ and ‘brave spirit’, and gets him/her the promise from him that: “ Do [thy ‘spriting gently’] … and after two days | I will discharge thee.” (I.2.298-9). Language here, then has the power to permit emancipation or suppression; and luckily for Ariel, it provides him/her liberation - at the end of the play he does indeed gain his/her freedom. And so too does Caliban, some critics may say, despite his clear lack of persuasive language – but he only really gains his liberty accidentally, by being left behind on the island to reclaim it as his own when Prospero and Miranda return to Italy. He is never given it as Ariel is, nor does he find favour with Prospero. If we are to look at the power of language here then, right to the end Prospero is adamant that Caliban is a “misshapen knave” (V.1.268), “a bastard one” (l.273) and a “thing of darkness” (l.275). And right from the beginning Miranda asserts that he is “a villain… | That I do not love to look on” (I.2.308-9), an “abhorrèd slave, | Which any print of goodness will not take, | Being capable of all ill!” (I.2.352-4) The possibility of quotes here is endless and the language that Miranda and Prospero use against Caliban is very powerful indeed. In fact, it is so powerful that it makes Caliban feel and express through language and action the extremes of emotion, that is, hate, and love – he hates Miranda and Prospero (“A south-west blow on ye | And blister you all o’er.” (I.2.3-4)), and he loves Stephano (“I’ll show thee every fertile inch o’th’island, and I will kiss thy foot. I prithee, be my god.” (II.2.145-6)) These extremes of emotion come not only from words but from actions, admittedly; but the actions towards Caliban, such as locking him in a rock (I.2.343 & 361), or making him gather wood in the desert (I.2.366), come from thoughts vocalized in language, used against him.
The love scenes in The Tempest and Translations present another type of power through language – emotional power. In The Tempest, the love scene is between Miranda and Ferdinand in III.1.. In Translations, the love scene occurs between Maire and Yolland in II.2., and there are some obvious parallels between it and The Tempest.
Most obviously perhaps, they are both meetings of two different people from two different cultures. In The Tempest, though Miranda and Ferdinand have no barrier of language such as there is in Translations, because of their shared Italian heritage, they are still from different cultures. Miranda has been brought up in solitude on an island away from all civilisation apart from her father. It has to be explained to her by her father that Ferdinand is not a ‘spirit’ (I.2.412-7). Meanwhile, the not only ‘civilised' but also ‘sophisticated’ court has surrounded Ferdinand all his life. Despite this he still considers Miranda as the most beautiful and virtuous creature he has ever met. His language bears this out, and has the power to make Miranda fall in love with him –
“Full many a lady
I have eyed with best regard, and may a time
Th’harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear…
But you, O you,
So perfect and so peerless, are created
Of every creature’s best.” (III.1.39-42 & 46-8)
However, language is again not the only power that is at work, and magic contributes as well as language to make Ferdinand and Miranda fall in love – Prospero confesses to us that “It goes on, I see, | As my soul prompts it.” (I.2.420-1)
In Translations meanwhile the discrepancies between the cultures of Maire and Yolland are even huger – one from the ‘civilised’ and ‘sophisticated’ Britain, in a professional job for a decent wage, and the other a poor peasant girl speaking a ‘backward’ language. In both of these cases though, this difference in their culture only unifies the two people more - overcoming their differences is something of the power of their love.
The second obvious similarity here is that of their profession of love. Compare Yolland’s “I could tell you how I spend my days either thinking of you or gazing up at your house in the hope that you’ll appear even for a second” to Ferdinand’s reply to Miranda’s “now farewell | Till half an hour hence” (l.90-1) of “A thousand, thousand!” (l.91), and Miranda’s “I’ll be your servant | Whether you will or no” (l.85-6) to Maire’s “I want to live with you – anywhere – anywhere at all – always – always.” These words of Maire’s are particularly powerful because Yolland does not understand them. Indeed, ironically, and sadly since it gives us a hint of the tragic parting that is to come in the Third Act of the play, Maire wants a different thing to Yolland – she wishes to ‘go away with him’, to England, or to anywhere. Yolland meanwhile wishes to ‘live here’, or stay put in Ireland. The power of their language for us as an audience is clear; except, despite that in both plays there are disapproving parties (Lancey, Manus and the Donnelly twins in Translations, and Prospero (supposedly) in The Tempest), the final effect in Translations is for worse, with death, heartbreak and destruction, whereas in The Tempest, it ends in a marriage, and thus becomes at once ‘lighter’. Power through language has various effects then, especially in this ‘emotional power’ context.
In Translations, there is a great deal of exploitation of language through translation. The translator is powerful because they have control, and the opportunity, whether used maliciously or otherwise, to change the meaning of the word or speech that they are translating through language. Friel makes quite an unconcealed link between power and language through this in Translations. The clearest example is Owen’s translation of Lancey’s introduction in Act One. He visibly does not translate what Lancey says, sweetening his words so as to not worry the village-people and make the English operation seem more legitimate. Thus:
LANCEY [The job is being done] …so that the entire basis of land valuation can be reassessed for the purposes of more equitable taxation.
OWEN This new map will take the place of the estate-agent’s map so that from now on you will know exactly what is yours in law.
And the disagreement between Manus and his brother that:
MANUS You weren’t saying what Lancey was saying!
OWEN ‘Uncertainty in meaning is incipient poetry’ - who said that?
MANUS There was nothing uncertain about what Lancey was said: it’s a bloody military operation, Owen!
Finally, it is necessary to discuss the different forms of language and how the playwrights have used them to illustrate dramatically the links between language and power. The sociolinguistic aspects of language have already been mentioned when the importance of names in presenting links between language and power was discussed, so we need not go into any more detail of that here.
Language, Society and Power (ed. Thomas and Wavering) suggests 5 main aspects of language excluding socio-linguistics.
The first aspect is cultural-linguistics. This refers to the aspects of language which are cultural, such as names of places which are specific, and certain turns of phrase which would not be found elsewhere. In Act three, Hugh wisely recapitulates that:
“It is not the literal past, the ‘facts’ of history, that shape us, but the images of the past embodied in language… We must never cease renewing those images; because once we do, we fossilise.”
Though seeming to advocate the actions of the English here, Hugh is actually just confirming that every culture will have a different language because they have different pasts, and the past is captured in language. He explains why language has power in every culture – because it makes the culture evolve – it is the images of the past embodied in language that shape us and stop us from fossilising. Also, the person controlling the language, controls the culture, and thus the people, and the history as well – and that is a lot of power!
In The Tempest, Prospero too involves himself in the cultural linguistic aspects of language when he teaches Caliban his language. Though this may be excusable because a noble-man of those times would have known no better than that their language was superior, he is never the less, by stripping Caliban of his own language which has its own meanings and ‘past’, stripping him of his identity; and here then is his power. Perhaps he would agree that “We must never cease renewing those images; because once we do, we fossilise.” Perhaps the question here needs to be, what is wrong with fossilising?
The second aspect is aesthetics. In Translations, the Infant Prodigy is the character most interested in the aesthetics of language, or how language sounds, and the ‘beauty’ of language. He is not interested in language as a form of communication, and is therefore not really interested in the Anglicisation going on around him. It will not affect him because he probably will not be around long enough to see it! This is a type of power and he is completely untroubled and unsuspecting at all time, because he appreciates language for what it is, as a poetry, rather than as a weapon in the way Manus or Lancey is using it. Yolland is the other character in Translations who loves the poetry of the language, except he prefers Irish to Greek and Latin. In II.1. he repeats the Irish places after Owen, allowing their sound to wash over him like a yogic mantra. This empowers him to speak with Maire and gives them common ground during the love-scene.
In The Tempest, it is the spirits who most clearly use language for it’s beauty and it’s sound. Apart from Ariel’s common speech, the masque (IV.1.) is an amazing example of saying nothing in endless sentences and making it sound pretty (F. R. Leavis’ commentary on Henry James comes to mind)! Essentially, the plot of the masque is very simple but it is drawn out to show off special effects and elaborate costumes which were the delight of the court in James I’s time. The New Penguin Shakespeare Commentary on The Tempest (p.167) explains:
“The verse of the masque is set off from the that of the play proper by it’s formality and deliberate artifice. It is filled with archaic or uncommon words and invokes a deliberately unreal, remote, mythological world [much like Jimmy Jack]. At the same time, it contrives to admit glimpses of a genuine English countryside [just as Jimmy compares ancient Greek goddesses to the Irish parish girls], and to maintain a delicate balance between those ideas of warmth and increase appropriate to a betrothal ceremony.”
The third aspect is communication. Language is the most important element in communication, not only what we say, but how we say it, in what tone of voice and what context. In Translations, Sarah embodies communication. After learning to speak when manus was there, she knows that language wont come back to her once he’s gone because the lines of communication between the English and the Irish have broken down. This is shown most clearly in Act Three. Owen tries to persuade her otherwise but Sarah is quite accepting and “shakes her head, slowly, emphatically, and smiles at Owen. The she leaves.” (Stage directions). Being not able to speak is in some ways even more powerful than being able to speak. Precisely because Sarah is so quiet we notice her by her absence; she is conspicuous by her silent presence. It is a powerful symbol that ‘communication’ should be silent for most of the time. Interestingly, Sarah is dominated by everyone in the play, Manus, Owen, and then Lancey who is very demanding of her.
In The Tempest, there is more than one example of broken communication; between Caliban and Prospero/Miranda, and Prospero and Antonio. The hostilities between these characters are clear throughout the play and illustrate the power of hate and jealousy. It isolates Caliban and turns his frustrations outwards to plotting against Prospero, and it makes Sebastian plot against his own brother in the same way Antonio did against his. This is expressed through language and action: Prospero says of Caliban that he is:
“A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost.
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all
Even to roaring.” (IV.1.189-193)
The fourth aspect is non-verbal communication (NVC), opposed to linguistic communication as above. Often, body language can show us things that speech hides, and can give off contrary signals, and what can’t be done through language can be done through physical appearance and action. Both Friel and Shakespeare keep tight reigns on their character’s movements through stage directions.
Friel describes his characters through from what they wear, to how old they are, what type of hair they have, what their characters are, as well as foibles such as ‘reacts physically when embarrassed or pleased [referring to Doalty]’. Yolland and Maire present the clearest example of NVC in II.2. where they cannot speak each other’s language and therefore must rely on their actions. Here, the author has the power through language to make his characters whatever he wills.
The Tempest meanwhile is Shakespeare’s most heavily directed play, perhaps because it was first in the Folio of 1623 and needed to give a good impression to someone picking up a book. The New Penguin Shakespeare Account of the Text (p.179) confirms:
“The result, neatly and intelligently divided into Acts and scenes, equipped list with a of characters and meticulously punctuated throughout, stands as perhaps the cleanest of Shakespeare’s texts.”
The fifth and final aspect is miscommunication, or the potential for it.
In Translations, Owen clearly mistranslates Lancey’s speech at the end of Act One, so that the people (except those who understand English such as Manus and Hugh) are unaware that the English are performing a ‘bloody military operation’. This reinforces the power he yields through his use of language. In II.2., Maire thinks she may have said something rude when Yolland’s reaction to her perfect recitation of ‘In Norfolk we be sport ourselves around the Maypole’ is shock, and this shows the power language has when we use it and do not know what we are saying. It also shows the importance of audience; much of what we say, no matter our intentions, is perceived differently than how we anticipated. And finally, there is a potential for miscommunication in changing the place names so that they loose their meaning.
In The Tempest meanwhile, there is miscommunication in the comical scene in III.2 when an invisible Ariel enters and causes havoc for poor Trinculo who is accused of reproaching Caliban for lying when really it is not him at all!
“ Enter Ariel, invisible
CALIBAN As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.
ARIEL Thou liest.
CALIBAN (to Trinculo) Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou
I would my valiant master would destroy thee!
I do not lie.
STEPHANO Trinculo, if you trouble him anymore in’s tale, by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.
TRINCULO Why, I said nothing.” (III.3.41-50)
This is particularly good for a demonstration of language and power because this misunderstanding, though disguised because of humour, shows how violent Stephano can get towards one of his best friends, threatening first to hang him from the next tree (l.36), then later to knock out his teeth (using, appropriately, the word ‘supplant’, like he wished to overtake the island), and then, later still, threatens to cut him open (l.70) and then he actually hits him (l.77).
There are many ways in which the writers of The Tempest and Translations have dramatically presented the links between language and power; through use of prose and verse by different characters, through education and colonisation, through use of names and renaming, through speeches and rhetoric, through persuasive language and through love scenes, through translation and through the six different forms of language. All these just begin to show the varied and skilled ways in which William Shakespeare and Brian Friel, in their own ages and in their different plays, share common elements and themes which make their works comparable in just such a thematic way.
5 926 words (oops sorry I got a bit carried away!)
