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
_ 44 psychological insight since she is too innocent and weak to defend herself. (MACANNA, 1985) But it is exactly this innocence and inability to defend herself that mokes tier so similar to many heroines of Irish and Hungarian folk ballads (for example those of "the sold girl" or "the sold daughter" type of ballads in our culture). She does not even get anywhere close to the possibility of choice or decision. Slie is destroyed due to the sins, faults and weaknesses of others, not to irer own flaws. Indeed, her life is fated since before her birth as she is an illegitimate child with all the consequences. Other people act towards tier like Fate, against which she is helpless; partly, the members of her family, whose power over ler is fortified by the stroog, traditional hierarchy, partly, the devilish matchmaker with his black force. This matchmaker could tie the conventional stage-figure of the intriguer, but here tie is both a character, a part of the village commonity , and also the embodiment of Evil. One of the great merits of the play is just this combination of the vivid realism of characters with their arclietypal quality. Thus, for instance, Mena, the practical-minded, determined, hard-working - and, as her name suggests: rather mean - peasant woman , who rules over the family yet les become embittered and dried out over the years in her struggle for survival, is a flesh-and-blood character r^nd also the embodiment of some aspects of the eternal woman who has to look after and support the family no matter what the circumstances are. Her husband, a wei 1-drawn peasant figure, is also the type of the weak-in-wil! mats, the old Adam, who accepts the apple from Eve - the shameful yet tempting offer of his wife. In Sive herself Christ-like Innocence and suffering are contrasted with the demonic contrivances of the overtly Satan-like matchmaker. The play is given a ritual dimension especially by the appearences of the two travelling tinkers - again fairly frequent figures of Irish plays. But they also become singers, story-tellers or bards, living conscience and judges, poets and prophets (the Irish spirit having the same association between poet, and seer as the Hungarian), all at the same tin«, while also being embedded in a realistic vision of Irish country life. They are described by some critics as a "miniature Greek chorus" (O'lOOLE, 1985:1), but I see them much closet to our minstrels ("regösök"), who, with their niagic, incantatory blessing or cursing songs
