It is a miraculous feat indeed, for a young man born into the squalor of a tenement in Dublin, at the turn of the
century, to overcome the handicap of no schooling at all to write with 'the bigness of mind', which Sean O'Casey
beautifully does. The cutting of his Dramatic teeth on Willy the Shake aside, the feelings he brings to the fore on
subjects we have been immersed in all quarter is nigh mind-altering. In his plays we see the difference of sex
relations and religious prejudices, and the power relations of a conquered and divided country's revolutionary politics
played out in vividness few playwrights can carry off. Here was a man I would have loved to sit down and have a pint
with.
The difference between the sex relations in Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars is
obvious, and one has to wonder if it is on religious grounds. Juno has the whole weight of her family's sorrow on her
shoulders. She is the hub about which her family revolves and survives. Jack the Paycock is constantly evading his
responsibility by bemoaning his injuries whilst drinking in a snug "Lookin' for work an' prayin' to God he won't get it',
yet, he never openly threatens the position of power Juno holds in the home. He is in fact quite deferential,
recognizing her rights but not asserting his. While in contrast Jack the Commandant is painfully firm about his
right to rule the home, even though Nora is the stronger character. In the end he sacrifices his relationship with
her for the glory of his heroism, and his potential political power in the new Republic. The statuary and votive candle
in Juno's home suggests Catholicism, while the absence of them, and the picture of Emmet suggests Protestantism
or, at the least, a casual disregard in the Clitheroe's home.
It is striking to see the difference the women show when faced by the death of their babies, Juno's son, and Nora's
Jack. Where Nora cracks under the strain of two betrayals of her lover for the glory of war, Juno repeats the lament
of her neighbor Mrs. Tancred, who ironically is mourning her son because Johnny, Juno's son, betrayed him. Her
words are worthy of repeating, for I believe they bear immeasurably on the whole of his work. "An' now here's the two
of us oul' women standin' on each side of the scales o' sorra balanced by the bodies of our dead darlin' sons."
Religion is a key element in Irish life, in the characterization of their struggle with Britain and with each other
over the question of Nationalism. The playwright has a very dim view of the sanctity of religion. At times the characters
seem able to recognize the yoke of it, at others they regard it with hypocritical zeal and the greatest of solemnity.
His most eloquent words about the subject come through the poet Davoren, " your religion is simply the state of being
afraid that God will torture your soul in the next world as you are afraid the Black and Tans will torture your body in
this." The Cromwellian tactic to exacerbate the political situation by provoking religious reactions is suggested in
the raid of the Black and Tans, in The Shadow of a Gunman, where a Protestant is tortured into saying a
prayer for the Irish Republic and singing a hymn.
Jack the Paycock vacillates between extremes in regard to these religious issues. Before his investiture he proudly
states " the clergy always had too much power over the people of this unfortunate country," while after he is (supposedly)
moneyed, he defends the slandering of Father Farrell with the same arguments he slammed him with previously.
It is Mary his daughter who puts this hypocritical obeisance to religion without recognition of ones actions into
context, with these words, " your humanity is just as narrow as the humanity of others."
It is strange to think Sean O'Casey was one of the organizers of the Irish Citizens Army, and yet he gives short shrift
to the politics of the revolutionaries. He seems to have no more love for the Republicans as he does for the Socialists.
It is again Devoran who speaks for the playwright when he says, "a man should always be drunk, when he talks of
politics, it's the only way to make them important."
In the character of Bentham we see perhaps some of his feelings toward Yeats. Bentham professes to be a Theosophist;
Yeats was for a time a Theosophist as well, until he was removed for his association with Mather's Golden Dawn. In
Bentham's leaving for England when Mary has become pregnant, he is perhaps suggesting something of the poet's
part in begetting the fervor of Nationalism, and then returning promptly to his Anglo-Irish roots to drink with the
enemy, once the flame is burning a bit to bright.
In our previous reading several of the suffragettes picketed The Plough and the Stars because they objected
to the depiction of their men being drinkers. It is possible they objected to this because when the characters are
imbued with the emotional energy of rebellion at the meeting, it is alcohol that sets their divisive tongues to wagging,
nearly causing three brawls. It is more likely they were upset at the words of the Young Covey. He continually
suggests that the Labor movement in general, and the Plough and Strars in particular, shouldn't be desecrated by
being associated with the political revolution of the ICA, and should only be used with regards to the founding of a
Worker's Republic. The depiction of Commandant Jack's wife Nora couldn't have been too flattering to them either;
a clinging and selfish wife unable to accept the sacrifice her husband was prepared to make for the glory of Ireland.
While reading these plays I was struck by the playwrights ability to take tense moments and powerful emotions and
convey them in an almost cinematic quality. While reading of the raid in The Shadow of a Gunman, or the
bar scene in The Plough and the Stars, I was particularly riveted to the character's action as well as there
emotional state. The ugliness of civil war was also a palatable presence; these plays brought to my mind the Civil
War here in America. Again it is a woman who delivers the succinct line in regards to the futility of the politics of
division, Juno says, "no bread's a lot better than half a loaf." There is much bitterness in these plays, and their
tragedy is a reflection on this long battle with the horror of conquest and division that is the legacy of the Irish
nation.