Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1989. 19/3. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 19)

Bertha, Csilla: Distortions of Character in John B. Keane's Peasant Plays

- 52somewhere, the Sergeant gets a wallet of notes and is going to be Superintendent

, Tadhg's children will be milking cows and keepin' donkeys away from our ditches. That's what we have to think about and if there's no grass, there's the end of me and mine." (76) All this adds not only to the psychological explanation of the Bull's crime, but also, and more importantly, makes him the representative of a different age and of a different order of living, laws and values: those of the cruel but heroic struggle for survival in the world of nature. A world not so much inhuma

n (although that, too), as ahuman

. In the play this barbaric, savage world confronts the values of the liuman and moral order. This is why, although from the point of view of human society his behaviour and deed are undoubtadly condemnable, yet, in the lack of a common value system, he is hardly touched by this judgment. The possibility of a synthesis or reconciliation of the two systems is suggested only in his last words, expressing that tie will not be free of remorse: "The grass won't be green over his grave when he'll be forgot by all... forgot by all except me..." (76) The confrontation between ttie old and the new is sharpened on more concrete levels, too. The second bidder at the land auction trusts civilization, the power of man-made laws, of en]ightemnent

, but does not understand anything of these dark, primitive forces. What adds a social and national dimension to the clash is that the newcomer wants the land for producing cement - a total break with the continuity of its natural use. In countries where industry and commerce started to dominate comparatively late, they were received with general suspicion and hostility. The situation was complicated both in Ireland and in Hungary by the fact that industry was introduced mostly by the foreign colonizers, and served first of all foreign interests. The young man wanting the land for cement-making in The Tieid

, is of course an outsider: Irish by origin but living in England, and would prefer living there had not circumstances forced him to return to Ireland. Ihe outsider, entering the peaceful life of a family or village, disturbing or changing the ordinary routine of life, is an often recurring figure in Irish peasant plays, (see CLARKE, 1902) This young man in The Field combines all the foreign features - national and social - so he could