At the very beginning of the play, Hugh, a large man with residual dignity, is absent because he is attending a christening, as we find out from Manus and Sarah. Friel has used this theme to demonstrate the fact that it is because of a naming ceremony, in effect giving a child its identity, that one man is absent. This may also indicate that the naming of things can be seen to some people as giving it (or changing) its identity, so keeping those people at bay. Manus says to Sarah about Hugh, ‘Yes I know he’s at the christening; but it doesn’t take them all day to put a name on a baby does it?’ With regards to the Irish peoples feelings on their own cultures and identity, that is being Irish and not English, Manus’s comment indicates that although it is clear what the British are doing, the sooner they are out of Ireland the better, as the Irish can reclaim their identities of being Irish and feel a part of their own culture again.
In the play of Translations, there are two British soldiers, and their names stand out to the other characters in the play due to their more reserved, English sound. They are called Lancey, a crisp officer and expert cartographer, and Yolland, a soldier purely by accident. Their main job is to rename the Irish place names into British ones, The theme of language is very strong at this point in the play, as the point that Brian Friel is trying to get across is that Lancey and Yolland may be in Ireland to change Irish place names to English, but the minds, identities and culture of the Irish people will always be unreachable.
Throughout Brian Friels play of Translations, there are references to other forms and ways of translating things, such as Owen, a considerate and enthusiastic young man, constantly translating Lanceys words, being the translator for the British army. The whole play itself is a translation from Gaelic to English, and Jimmy Jack Cassie, also known as the Infant Prodigy, constantly translates Greek to Latin, as the pupils of the hedge school give etymologies of English words. The reason this emphasis is put on translation throughout the play, is to illustrate the point that language can be easily translated to another, yet culture, and a person’s sense of belonging, cannot be so easily swayed.
Naming, along with language, as a theme in the play of Translations is also a very relevant one, as it is through this that Friel can express the fact that the naming of places, and the naming of people in the play can reflect what their culture is and the identity of that person.
As we find out almost at the beginning of the play, Sarah has a speech defect so bad that all her life she had been considered to be dumb. When trying to say her name, a way of expressing ones identity, to Manus in the Hedge School, she cannot only say it, but she also tries to use body language aswell, expressing her emotions within her face. Her way of expressing her name may reflect back to the way in which she has been brought up, being treated as though dumb, and so not having a real identity, relating to her identity of a dumb person. In the way in which she acts, she expresses her identity through her language, both linguistically and physically and tries to make herself known as Sarah, and not the profoundly dumb girl.
Another character in the play, whose name is used purposefully by Friel, is Owen. Throughout Act One, Owen is not called by his real name by Lancey and Yolland, the two British soldiers, but instead he is called Roland. This proves to be slightly ironic as the fact that the two soldiers are in Ireland to change the place names, yet they cannot even remember one mans name demonstrates how the British were seen as paying not much respect to the Irish community’s culture. Owens identity is seemingly lost when he is called Roland, as we immediately assume that Roland is a different person, as that not being his real name gives him a feel of a lack of identity.
Therefore, in the play of Translations, Brian Friel has tried to express the relationship between language and naming to culture and identity. He has done this by using people’s names and the renaming process to express the way in which they react to place names being changed. He has shown how people’s feelings of their identities change when their culture is altered, in this case, by the place names being made into English from Irish, so changing the feeling of the area in which most of them have spent all of their lives in. In this way for a lot of them, their identities are lost when things are changed in their settled lives.
