Colonization and Social Changes
The 19th and 18th centuries were characterized by colonization and social changes and movements that were brought about by various colonial power. In this period there were many changes in people’s way of life due to interaction with different people who had different beliefs and practices. In most cases the colonial powers, who were from Western Europe, had a significant role in changing the beliefs and practices of people in their colonies. In Africa and Asia, most superpowers began by sending missionaries to their colonies, who alienated the Africans into the beliefs and practices of the Europeans. This was essential since it made it easy for colonialists to take over the African and Asian countries. Looking back, most European colonies did not practice Christianity, but the Europeans had to teach their territories the Christian way so that their beliefs would be similar. In defining people’s culture, language and religious views are the essential aspects to consider. In the post-colonial period, the roles of women and men were defined differently as they are today. The traditional woman was overworked, abused, and had no say in the society or the running of the family. Some of these practices and abuse against women were changed by the colonial powers, beliefs, and practices. In Translations by Brian Friel, Friel tries to show the changes that occurred due to Ireland’s interactions with the Americans in a play. He examines how two different cultures with different beliefs were able to cross-fertilize each other in Irelands Anglicization. Through this play, people can understand how actions by the Americans were able to change the way of life of the Irish people. The game explains the way of life of pre-colonial Irish people and post-colonial Irish citizens.
In Translations, Friel explains the transformation of Ireland from the Gaelic nation to an Anglicized state in the 19th century. He considers the two cultures that were in Ireland at that time, which were America and Irish. During the transition, Irish schools, names, and language were still predominant in the country, but they were confused since Anglicization was taking over, creating a new generation of hybrids (Kelly, 626). Their hybridity focused on the contradictions between the two cultures rather than the similarities in the two cultures and practices. In the play, the characters appear confused about which religion was the best for the Irish people creating a situation where they are enslaved in the struggle for identity. By this, Friel shows how hybridity is inevitable in a colonized state or community.
In the Translation, Freil shows transformation brought by the national school system and ordnance survey, which are essential in the Anglicization process of the traditional beliefs and practices of the Irish people. Ballybeg, a city in Ireland, is mapped by English soldiers and late changed its name from Irish to English. These acts of cultural deprivations were further shown in the national school system, where the language used changed from Irish to English. This unexpected change in the Irish language and culture cause various identity crises for the Irish people. These changes in the Gaelic culture of the Irish people played a significant part in shaping Irish society, as shown in the play by Friel. However, the game failed to show who immigration was occurring at that period and how it harmed the Irish families and society.
During the colonial period in Ireland, many people migrated from rural areas to go to work in industries in the United States. However, many people were not prepared for life in America since it was developed as compared to their homeland. Although many people were able to cross over to America, a large number of people were unable to raise the required passage fee to require in the ships that transported them to America. In most cases, people who did not have transport money settled near the ports. The migration levels were very intense at the time, such that Irish citizens exceeded American citizens in New York City. Although the Irish people in New York were living in deplorable conditions, they were able to establish patterns in which people back home could use to come to America. Their living conditions were characterized by a lack of clean drinking water and inadequate sewage management. Still, the Irish people have more than contended since, in Ireland, they were used to mud houses. The initial residents of the city were forced to move out in fear of contracting diseases such as cholera and social problems such as crime and violence (Kelly,288). This were some aspects that were portrayed in the play Transition by David Friel.
In Ireland, the transition between English and Irish Gaelic occurred in two different scenarios. In the southern part of Ireland, the Irish language was the official language, but after colonization, only a small group of the population could fluently speak the Irish dialect. Even though the national government of Ireland supported the transition, most Irish citizens view it as another colonial move. This period of colonization in Ireland was characterized by religious conflict between the American people and the Irish citizens. The Protestants and Catholics engaged in verbal attacks, which later escalated to mob violence between believers in the two religions. Due to high immigration by the Irish citizens, groups such as the American nativist party were formed to oppose the catholic denomination. This made the Irish, especially those who had migrated to America, change their religious beliefs from catholic to protestant. This greatly affected the Irish culture since most of their practices were borrowed from the Catholic doctrines and practices.
In the play, Friel exposes the racial tension and racial injustices that were occurring in both America and Ireland against the Irish citizens. Since most Irish men had migrated to America to find a job, they experienced racial injustices from the Americans, just like the blacks who were used as slaves. Irish men were overworked and underpaid by the Americans since they were viewed as inferior people in society. The Americans did not only have negative impacts on the Irish people since they introduced formal education and industrialization in Ireland. Ireland was much behind in development when the Americans colonized them. The Americas brought the technology and industries that were present in America during that period. This played a crucial role in the revolution of Ireland into an industrialized country.
Africa is well known as a home of diverse cultures that bear different rules, behaviors, characters, and the way the people interact and engage with each other. The people who have different ways of socializing among them is the way they worship their various gods and the social practices that are termed acceptable in the society that is set as a must for each member to go through to be a wholly accepted member of the community. The African culture sets different levels for each gender and rigid rules that each should follow in their stages of growth, which if they don’t comply, they are an outcast to the society or subjected to punishment from the elderly groups (Christopher, 2880. The African culture has been in the windows of change since colonialism and after the colonialism, where the members have been subjected to make various choices on the way to go since they have had much in their plate to choose from. Ama Ata Aidoo is a persistent author who has covered the systematic change in the African societal setting exposing how the culture had transited over the period and how the change has affected the Africans. Aidoo is an advocate of the Black woman who carries the figure of mother Africa, who has suffered the jaws of feminism from the robust cultures set against her gender that oppresses her and diminishes her speech in the society. She brings to light how the community has a patriarchal standpoint that supports the male gender and discriminates against the female; hence her works point on how to bring liberty and freedom for the woman from slavery, subjection, dependence, and the controlling influences of the crude society (Larsen).
The African woman is depicted as weak, vulnerable, and fragile, and she is unable to stand for her desire and wants in society because society has taken away her voice. She stands as a slave of the culture. The weak image of a woman renders her as an object to the male-dominated society where she has to beg for her survival hence taken advantage of as she remains voiceless and defenseless. Aidoo reflects a pathway for the black woman emancipation as she subverts the negative image that has been put as a burden on her shoulders and has to rise to free herself and the fruits of her womb. African culture has strengthened the male figure and given the boldness, which creates a tyranny of the traditional patriarchal society where the black woman is a victim. Nothing is meant to work in her favor. The conventional structures have oppressed her and are backed up by her backwardness as she does not stand for what she feels is right in fear of no one with listening to her, and it will be a wasted effort since her color undermines her, and so does her race (Aidoo). When everything surrounding the African woman is loud and clear against her, Aidoo shows that she loses herself, her morals and everything she stands for also fades in the brutal society. Africa is shown as a home where the black woman returns to find her lost sense of belonging as her roots and source, but rather her homeland denies her and turns hostile to host her as everything turns unbearable, which render her misfit rather than acceptable in her newly adopted home. This is a total disappointment since a place where we call home we expect to find peace, beloved, and feel at liberty, but instead, Africa becomes a source of oppression and denies the rights of a black woman.
Once again, Aidoo brings home an image of how the oppression of the African mother is out of time and place, and she cries for her salvation and victory to reign and quenches her thirst in a home that does not call her an outcast and listens to her. The picture of the modern woman is shown to be futile, largely unachievable, misdirected, and also misplaced. Aidoo sets to pace the image of modernization and its effects to the society by exposing character that performs actions that are termed as taboos in the community as there is the usage of drugs like the smoking of cigarettes hence it’s a claim that the colonization has a significant adverse effect on the black woman than the African cultures and the traditions. The new era comes with education and enlightenment that makes Africa assimilated and transformed with a new face where their morals and values are washed and have faded in the dawn of colonialism (Nwoga, 31). There is the use of modern gadgets and refusal to procreate that is blamed on the westernization. Western education is corrupting to the level that the identities and Traditional African Values are against it and are shown as pure, normative, and the upstanding, which are instead defending the Black woman than the new face of the westerners. Aidoo has overturned the foundation of what the cultures thought of the black woman to be and freed her from the doomed perspective of a slave.
In conclusion, each society has two faces where they initially held on and where the translation and the assimilation of the westerners resulted in and what effects they left on people. Like in the African setting, marriage is an institution where the worst forms of gender oppression and patriarchy revolve around identity, race, social background, modernity, and procreation for the continuation of the African culture to the future generations. To be a wife includes the demands of obedience, producing children, subservience, and self-denial and also staging life for husbands. Women are the propagators of the oppression they undergo since they are forced to bend to the male-dominated society instead of standing for what they want and speaking themselves out. In the new face of the modernized African, the black woman has found her wit and strength in the outspoken generation where people speak out loud where they see oppression, and there have been various platforms of self-expression. There is also the emergence of literature where authors reach out to the literate generation through writing books and articles advocating for the right morals in society. Surely the play Transition was a reflection of the assimilation that was taking place in Ireland. The Irish people were behind in development and technology, but the American was able to change that through colonization. Although it brought conflict between the old and new societies in Ireland, it had positive effects on the development of Ireland. However, migration had an adverse impact as it demoralized the Irish culture by showing that the American culture was superior, and people should follow it. Aspects such as the catholic religion, which were part of Ireland’s culture, were changed. Through the play, Friel can show these changes that occurred in Ireland during the colonial period.
Work cited
Kearney, Richard. Transitions: Narratives in modern Irish culture. Manchester University Press, 1988.
Murray, Christopher. “Irish drama in transition 1966-1978.” Etudes irlandaises 4.1 (1979): 287-308.
Kelly, Elish, et al. “Transitions in and out of unemployment among young people in the Irish recession.” Comparative Economic Studies 56.4 (2014): 616-634.
Aidoo, Ama Ata. The dilemma of a ghost and Anowa. Longman, 1995.
Larsen, Stephan. A writer and his gods: a study of the importance of Yoruba myths and religious ideas to the writing of Wole Soyinka. Diss. Stockholm University, 1983.
Namwoga, D. Ibe. “West Africa: Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 9.2 (1974): 31-44.