Where Is My Country?: From Everyday Life to the Emigration Complex in Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!

• Chang, Hawk ^[1]
  1. [1] Education University of Hong Kong

     Education University of Hong Kong

     RAE de Hong Kong (China)

     
• Localización: Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos, ISSN 0210-6124, Vol. 46, Nº. 2, 2024, págs. 135-150
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • Arguably, Brian Friel’s 1964 work Philadelphia, Here I Come! is one of the most influential plays in 20th-century Irish literature, as it focuses on emigration, a pivotal political and cultural phenomenon that recurs in both modern and contemporary Irish history. Crucially, Friel invents a protagonist with split personalities, Public Gar and Private Gar, representing the conflicted mentality of a migrant who finds it necessary to leave their motherland. By reading Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! from the perspective of migration, this paper examines the necessity of departure for Gar and the difficulty of his arrival. I argue that Gar’s conflicts are not accidental but are consistent with a typical Irish mentality. However, the play suggests that the Irish protagonist’s endeavor to shun troubles via voluntary emigration can hardly promise a better tomorrow.