Faculty of Arts,
Chulalongkorn University
Molly Sweeney
(1995)
Brian Friel
(January
9, 1929–October 2, 2015)
Notes
to Molly Sweeney
1491 engram:
- engram (Oxford
Dictionaries)
A hypothetical permanent change in the brain accounting for the
existence of memory; a memory trace.
1496 see men walking as if like trees:
- Mark 8:22–25 (King
James Bible)
22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man unto him, and
besought him to touch him.
23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town;
and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked
him if he saw ought.
24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking..
25 After that he put his hands
again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw
every man clearly.
- Mark 8:22–25 (New
International Version)
22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and
begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him
outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his
hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”
24 He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking
around.”
25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were
opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.
Theater
Morison: How do you want
people to react? Do you want them to be angry?
Friel: This is a technique, a
theatrical technique. Anger is a theatrical technique. The theatre is
altogether so different from a short story anyhow. You get a group of
people sitting in an audience and they aren't individual thinking
people any longer once they're in an audience. They are a corporate
group who act in the same way as a mob reacts—react emotionally and
spontaneously. Now you can move these people by making them angry. You
can make them sympathetic. You can make them laugh. You can make them
cry. You can do all these things. And this emotional reaction doesn't
live very long, doesn't last very long [...]
—Graham
Morison, "An Ulster Writer: Brian Friel," 1965, Brian Friel in Conversation,
ed. Paul Delaney (Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2000): 26.
“For
me the true gift of theatre, the real benediction of all art, is the
ringing bell which reverberates quietly and persistently in the head long
after the curtain has come down and the audience has gone home.”
|
Study Questions
- What are the advantages and
disadvantages of Molly's perceptions compared to those of
Frank, Mr. Rice and other sighted people?
- What blindness does Frank have?
- How do the three characters interact?
- How does Frank learn about Molly's
"sight"?
- What do the eye operations give Molly
and what do they take away?
- Repetitions
- In what ways is act 2 a replay of act
1? What parallels of action occur? What lines come back
and how changed or unchanged in meaning?
- Discuss the frequent use of repeated
words, phrases, or questions in the play. For example,
- A new world—a new life! A new life
for both of us! (1495)
- They don't. They can't. And have I
anything to gain? Anything? Anything? (1498)
- Could we meet that evening?
Saturday? Sunday? What about a walk, a meal, a
concert? Just a chat? [...] What would be the ideal
entertainment for somebody like her? A meal? A
concert? A walk? Maybe a swim? (1500)
- Yes...I do see it...up and
down...up and down...Yes! I see it! I do! Yes! Moving
up and down! Yes-yes-yes! (1504)
- Tests—tests—tests—tests—tests!
(1511)
- Such peace—such peace (1511)
- Revisions, corrections: Consider
characters' qualifications or emendations of initial
statements. How do the revisions alter the original
meaning? Look at some of the following:
- One of the most fascinating
discoveries I made when I was in the cheese business—well,
perhaps not fascinating, but interesting, definitely
interesting [...] Well, perhaps not an interesting
discovery in any general sense (1491)
- I must have done thousands of
operations. Sorry—performed. Bloomstein always corrected
me on that (1507)
- I didn’t tell Mr Rice that story when
he first asked me about my childhood. (1513)
- Even the world of touch has shrunk.
No, not that it has shrunk; just that I seem to need
much less of it now. (1518)
- the youngish woman sobbing quietly at
the far end of the corridor, more lamenting than sobbing
(1519)
- Questions: Questions mark distinctive
moments in the play's dialogue. Discuss the functions of
these questions. Consider, for example, some of the
following:
- Where precisely are we? (1487)
- Stream? Do you hear a stream? (1488)
- What have I got in my hand? (1508)
- What sort of fruit? (1508)
- Well?...Anything? Anything at all?
(1504)
- Can you see my hand, Molly? (1504)
- What way is it moving? (1504)
- I know the colour, don't I? (1508)
- It's a peach, right? (1508)
- You do
know that?...Do you really? (1513)
- So there is some vision, isn't there?
So there is hope, isn't there, isn't there?...And if
there is a chance, any chance, that she might be able to
see, we must take it, mustn't we? How can we not take
it? She has nothing to lose, has she? What has she to
lose? (1490)
- Why the agitation over this case? You
remove cataracts every day of the week, don't you? And
isn't the self-taught husband right?...What has she to
lose for Christ's sake? (1496)
- Why am I going for this operation?
None of this is my choosing. Then why is this happening
to me? [...] But how can they know what they are taking
away from me? How do they know what they are offering
me? They don't. They can't. And have I anything to gain?
Anything? Anything? (1498)
|
Vocabulary
monologue
character
characterization
motive
point of view
voice
tone
diction
rhythm
pace
repetition
echoes
style
irony
contradictions
imagery
foreshadowing
metaphor
themes
relationships
ability
disability
lack
loss
sense
perception
know, knowing, knowledge
understanding
engram
sight, seeing
vision
blind, blindness
faith
healing
connections
contrast
comparison
shanachie
Review Sheet
Characters
Molly Sweeney – "'forty-one, married
just over two years, and working as a massage therapist in a local health
club'" (1490); "'An only child'"; "'blind since she was ten months old. She
wasn't totally sightless: she could distinguish between light and dark'";
"MOLLY should indicate her disability in some such subtle way. No canes, no
groping, no dark glasses, etc."; "By the time I was five years of age, my
father had taught me the names of dozens of flowers and herbs and shrubs and
trees"; "'Nemophila are sometimes called Baby Blue Eyes. I know you can't
see them but they have beautiful blue eyes. Just like you. You're my
nemophila'"; "'I [Mr. Rice] liked her calm and her independence; the
confident way she shook my hand and found a seat for herself with her white
cane. And when she spoke of her disability, there was no self-pity, no hint
of resignation'"; "'Reminded me instantly of my wife, Maria'" (1489)
Frank Constantine Sweeney – 1490; "'an ebullient
fellow; full of energy and inquiry and the indiscriminate enthusiasms of the
self-taught'" (1489); "'as she talked, he kept interrupting'" (1490); "'her
blindness was his latest cause and that it would absorb him just as long as
his passion lasted'"
Mr. Rice – "'here in remote
Ballybeg was I about to be given—what is the vulgar parlance?—the chance of
a lifetime, the one-in-a-thousand opportunity that can rescue a career'";
"'No wonder his wife cleared off with another man'"; "'said to have been one
of the most brilliant ophthalmologists ever in the country. Worked in the
top eye hospitals all over the world—America, Japan, Germany. Married a
Swiss girl. They had two daughters. Then she left him—according to the
gossip; went off with a colleague of his from New York'"; "'for all his
assurance there was something . . . unassured about him'"; "'He did ask me
once, did the idea, the possibility, of seeing excite me or frighten me'"
Father – "'Father a judge'"
(1489); "'although I never saw my father's face, I imagine it never revealed
any bewilderment either'"
Mother – "'Mother in and out
of institutions all her days with nervous trouble'" (1489)
Sample
Student
Response to Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney
Response 1:
|
|
Student
2202234
Introduction to the Study of English Literature
Acharn
Puckpan Tipayamontri
June
15, 2009
Reading
Response 1
Title
Text
|
|
Media
|
|
- Cara Kelly talks about Molly Sweeney,
National Theatre of Scotland (2007; 3:26 min.)
|
|
- Molly
Sweeney: An Extract, National Theatre of Scotland
(2007; 3:11 min.)
|
|
- Molly Sweeney Trailer, dir. Abigail
Graham, The Print Room (2013; 1:42 min.)
|
|
- "An interview with Selina Cartmell," A
Festival of Friel: Molly Sweeney in Rehearsals, Curve
Theatre (2010; 2:01 min.)
|
|
- Brian
Friel, dir. Sinéad O'Brien, RTÉ (2000
documentary; 49:36 min.; Molly
Sweeney mentioned at 42:50)
|
|
|
Brian Friel
|
- Fintan O'Toole, "Brian
Friel’s Interview with Fintan O’Toole: 'I’m not really
very good at this kind of question,'" The
Irish Times (1982, 2015)
- "Brian
Friel: An Obituary," RTÉ News (2015)
- Rachel Flaherty, "Brian
Friel, 'Giant of World Theatre,' Dies Aged 86," The Irish Times
(2015)
- Benedict Nightingale, "Brian
Friel, Playwright Called the Irish Chekhov, Dies at 86,"
The New York Times
(2015)
- "Brian
Friel," Ireland Literature Exchange
- "Brian
Friel: A Life in Theatre – In Pictures," The
Guardian (2015)
|
Reference
Friel,
Brian. Molly Sweeney. 1995. Arguing Through Literature: A Thematic
Anthology and Guide to Academic Writing. Ed. Judith Ferster. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. 1487–1519. Print.
Further
Reading
Andrews, Elmer. The
Art of Brian Friel: Neither Reality Nor Dreams. London:
Macmillan, 1995. Print.
Coult, Tony. About
Friel: The Playwright and the Work. London: Faber and Faber,
2003. Print.
Delaney, Paul, ed. Brian Friel in Conversation.
Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2000. Print.
Grant, David. The
Stragecraft of Brian Friel. London: Greenwich Exchange, 2004.
Print.
Home | Reading and Analysis for the Study of
English Literature | Literary Terms
Last updated March 1, 2016