English Literature 9695

Philadelphia Here I Come!: Gar Public (R&P)

Q. The role and presentation of Gar Public.

Friel's intention is perhaps to bring attention towards problems faced by the youth. Especially due to the lack of communication with ones parents by presenting Gar in a sympathetic and relatable way. Gar wants his father's affection but he never receives it. His serious relationship fails badly. After all of this perhaps he feels lonely and developed an alter ego to keep himself company, to speak his mind and to convince himself that the decision he has made to leave to America is the right one. He wants to leave to follow his 'American dream' to maybe receive the love from his aunt that he was not able to receive from his father and his late mother, even so he feels reluctant and attached to his homeland, family and friends. But for the sake of new beginnings he will leave and seek the love he is not able to get from the people he loves, in new places.

Gar is the protagonist of the play and the entire action revolves around him. At the start, we get a sense his enthusiasm. He looks forward to his departure with a keen sense of delight. His old life is over, and he looks on his release from his father's shop as an escape. Typically, he thinks of America in extravagant terms: the cities, the women, the affluence, the tremendous opportunities. These are the things he wants to experience. But they are also the things he has no real affection for. When Private makes his first entrance, little episodes from the past begin to crop up in the play, past events which begin to dim Gar's bright future. For Gar, everything begins again, and before the play is over he relives many important episodes in his life. From this point, the play goes on to describe his mother's death, then the episode with Kate Doogan. Later he remembers his childish affection for his father, the day they spent in the blue boat, as well as the nights and days he spent with 'the boys'. As all these memories come back to Gar his enthusiasm for America begins to wane.

When he feels hurt or threatened his principle defence is to pass it off with a laugh. Gar seeks release from his disappointment in a series of confused fantasies which he acts out in an exaggerated manner. 'The boys' also embody much of the fantasy and role-playing carried out by the Private, with their loud talk and rowdy conversation about their exploits. While he sits with his father in silence, Private moves the stage with humorous, yet harsh comments directed at S.B.. On other occasions, however, Gar's enthusiasm desserts him. He feels humiliated, and unable to deflate the situation with humorous comments. There are numerous instances of this in the play. For example, after the first scene with Kate Doogan, Gar is feeling upset and confused. Her cozy description of family life- 'Mommy and Daddy. They are all at home tonight.'- is strangely disturbing to Gar who has no experience of these things. as is usual for Gar he tries to hide his feelings under indifferent comment just as Madge hides hers under her gruffness. Still for the rest of the play, Gar struggles to regain his composure. But memories from the past keep crowding into his mind. He recalls his most precious memory, the day he spent fishing with his father on the lake meanwhile his father does not even remember such a trip. All Gar expects from his father is affection and that's all that he does not get from him and even then he can not come to let his father go. It is necessary that Friel should depict Gar in this way. If Gar rejected his father outright, his friends, and his past life in Ballybeg, then much f the drama would be lost. The success of the play comes from the tension in Gar's feelings towards his father, his friends and his past life. Thus he can laugh at his father, make fun of him verbally, but he can never reject him.

Friel seems to be making a rather harsh comment on Irish society in this play. Ballybeg is filled with people who can not communicate with one another and whose lives are marked by illusions. Gar's aunt Lizzy has all the trappings of the American dream, but her drinking betrays her disillusionment with life. Furthermore, he relationship with her husband, Con, appears thwarted with its own kind of communication problem, just like Gar's with his father. She remains ultimately unfulfilled and lonely and, despite appearances, has not succeeded in reinventing herself. It is doubtful that Gar will be any more successful unless he can break the cycle that he has inherited. The final words of both Gar and S.B.- 'I don't know'- captures their shared bewilderment and the sad fact that it i precisely this bewilderment that connects and separates them.

The past is very important in this play. The past is idealised. This idealisation of the past is achieved through flashback. Gar's mind ranges over a period of twenty-five years. With the thought of departure in twenty-four hours, Gar is forced to review the significant events which influenced his decision to leave Ballybeg. He remembers the interview with Senator Doogan and the visit of Aunt Lizzy. These two incidents are reenacted on stage with the action of the play shifting from the past to the present. Through the exchanges between Gar Public and Gar Private, past experiences, present feelings and future fantasies are revealed. This is not a conventional play as the development of the plot occurs in Gar's mind. The conflict between the two Gars mirrors the central conflict of the play. This conflict is centred on the emotional loyalty Gar has to his past and his desire to create an identity for himself beyond his past.

Gar's American dream is a representation of his need for freedom and escape from the norms of his homeland and his past. Friel gives us a clear imagine of his lack of communication and failure in relationships through interactions between him and his father, Madge, Kate, his friends and Aunt Lizzy support his want to leave. Friel also brings attention to class differences and how they effect relationships by giving us a picture of Gar and Kate's failed relationship. Despite their love for each other they are not able to succeed in getting married due to the fact that Senator Doogan wants Kate to marry a rich man s per the norms of the upperclass, to marry someone more ores wealthy as themselves. Gar Private is a representation of psychological problems brought about by loneliness, perhaps Gar Private is only a means of relaying Gar's thoughts to the audience but since Gar converses with Gar Private and uses him to convince himself that his decision of going to America is for the best, perhaps it is symbolising a psychological problem. Furthermore Gar condemns Ballybeg for the very things which will solve his problems, love, affection, identity and warmth. Friel's shows us through Gar Private that Gar is putting all the blame on others instead of accepting that some of his life's shortcomings may have been his fault. Escape to Philadelphia, as Madge tells us, will solve nothing.