Splitting out of Class: Family and Social Class as Schizophrenogenic Forces in Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme

Year 2023, , 44 - 52, 21.12.2023

Merve Hançer

https://doi.org/10.26650/jtcd.1369820

Abstract

McGuinness’s The Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (1985) can be considered an exemplary play in which he asserts how historical, political, and social institutions impact individuals, resulting in schizoid states. This study of family and social class as oppressive institutions in Irish society, as reflected in Sons of Ulster, examines the split self of the main character, Kenneth Pyper with respect to Deleuze and Guattari’s1 schizoanalysis theory, which considers the idea of split self into social and self-identity as emancipation from social and political pressures. Pyper’s split self will be interpreted from a cultural–critical standpoint rather than a “clinical schizophrenic” one. In this way, McGuinness criticizes family and social class institutions as schizophrenogenic forces that constrain the individual by splitting the main character into Elder and Younger Pyper in Sons of Ulster.

Keywords

Deleuze and Guattari, Frank McGuinness, Irish Drama, Schizoanalysis

References

• ‘A Dog’s Life: Eos! Prince Albert’s Loyal Greyhound’. The Esoteric Curiosa. 16 November 2010. http://theesotericcuriosa.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-life-eos-prince-alberts-loyal.html google scholar
• Allen, Douglas W. ‘A Theory of the Pre-Modern British Aristocracy’. Explorations in Economic History 46, no. 3 (2009): 299-313. google scholar
• Bukowski, Jeffrey. ‘Unseen Identity’. M.A. thesis, University of Vermont, 2008. google scholar
• Cervantes, Miguel De. Don Quixote. Translated by John Rutheford. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. google scholar
• Corr, Joseph. ‘Queer Identities During the Troubles in Northern Ireland: The Birth of Queer Theatre in Northern Ireland.’ PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, 2020. google scholar
• Cregan, David. Frank McGuinness’s Dramaturgy of Difference and the Irish Theatre. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2011. google scholar
• Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. Minneapolis: Minnesota U.P., 1983. google scholar
• Etherton, Michael. Contemporary Irish Dramatists. New York: St.Martin’s Press, 1989. google scholar
• Fakhrkonandeh, Alireza, Yiğit Sümbül. ‘Art as Symptom or Symptomatology? Performative Subjects, Capitalist Performativity, and Performance-Based Therapy in Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things’. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, vol.23, no. 4 (2021): 503-546. google scholar
• Fitzgerald, Jennifer, Seamus Deane, Joan Fowler, and Frank McGuinness. ‘The Arts and Ideology: Jennifer Fitzgerald Talks to Seamus Deane, Joan Fowler and Frank McGuinness’. The Crane Bag 9, no. 2 (1985): 60-69. google scholar
• FitzPatrick, Joan Dean. ‘Self-Dramatization in the Plays of Frank McGuinness’. New Hibernia Review/Iris Eireannach Nua, JSTOR, 3, no. 1 (1999): 97-110. google scholar
• Holland, Eugene. Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1999. google scholar
• Jordan, Eamonn. The Feast of Famine: The Plays of Frank McGuinness. Bern: Peter Lang, 1997. google scholar
• Kenneth, Nally. Celebrating Confusion: The Theatre of Frank McGuinness. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. google scholar
• Kiberd, Declan. ‘Frank McGuinness and the Sons of Ulster’. The Yearbook of English Studies 35, no. 1 (2005): 279-97. google scholar
• Kozyr- Kowalski, Stanislaw. ‘Marx’s Theory of Classes and Social Strata and “Capital”’. The Polish Sociological Bulletin, JSTOR, no.21 (1970) 17-32. google scholar
• Laing, R. D. The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness. London: Penguin Books, 1990. google scholar
• Lojek, Helen. ‘Troubling Perspectives: Northern Ireland, the “Troubles” and Drama’. In A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama 1880-2005, edited by Mary Luckhurst, 329-40. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. google scholar
• McGuinness, Frank. Plays: The Factory Girls, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Innocence, Carthaginians, Baglady. Faber, 1996. google scholar
• Pine, Emilie. ‘The Tyranny of Memory: Remembering the Great War in Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme’. Irish University Review 40, no. 1 (2010): 59-68. google scholar Reid, Ivan. Class in Britain. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998. google scholar
• Reid, Ivan. Social Class Differences in Britain: A Sourcebook. London: Open Books, 1977. google scholar
• Schrank, Bernice. ‘World War One in Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme’. In The Theatre of Frank McGuinness: Stages of Mutability, edited by Helen Lojek, Dublin. Carysfort Press: 2002. google scholar
• Scott, John. ‘Social Class and Stratification in Late Modernity’. Acta Sociologica 45, no. 1 (2002): 23-35. google scholar
• Sternlicht, Sanford. A Reader’s Guide to Modern Irish Drama. Syracuse University Press, 1998. google scholar