Juno and the peacock

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Juno and the Paycock (German Juno and the Peacock in the translation by Maik Hamburger ) is a dramatic work by the Irish writer Seán O'Casey , which premiered in 1924 at the Abbey Theater in Dublin and was first published in book form in 1925 by Macmillan Verlag in London . Since then, the play has become an integral part of the repertoire of theaters around the world, including German ones. Set in the slums of Dublin in 1922, Juno and the Peacock deals with the fate of the Irish Boyle family from the lower social classes who are hit by a series of blows.

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The father, ironically called "Captain Boyle", is unemployed and also work-shy; due to his entire character disposition, he is no longer able to hold the family together. As soon as he is offered a job, he experiences excruciating pain in his leg with the presence of mind, making it impossible for him to take a step; However, he can act purposefully when his path leads to the pub .

Johnny, the son of the family, was involved in the Irish War of Independence and the civil war that followed and suffered injuries; he is also suspected of having betrayed a comrade to the other side who was killed on the basis of this information. Johnny is then abducted by his own comrades-in-arms and executed in retaliation for the death of the other.

The daughter Mary is also out of work; she took part in a protest strike for an unjustly dismissed colleague and lost her job as a result. Mary is after a seedy English lawyer with hollow theoretical beliefs. This lawyer named Bentham finally discovers a will that promises the Boyle family a considerable sum of money, but makes a mistake in drawing up the will, so that hopes of financial rescue are dashed again. When Mary becomes pregnant by him, Bentham makes a secret out of the dust. Mary is then cast out by her father.

The only integrative force in this self-destructive family is Juno, the mother and title figure. She takes on the outcast Mary after Johnny's murder and Bentham's disappearance. When they complain that their child will not have a father, Juno replies that it will have something much better, namely two mothers.

Interpretative approach

Dublin slum dwellers around the turn of the century

As Kosok shows in his analysis of the piece, the statements of Juno and the peacock can be interpreted on different levels.

In structural terms, O'Casey's drama shows a conventional, transparent structure with a consistently conceived fable rich in individual events; the structure of the drama largely follows the form of classical tragedy . The play contains three storylines, the Johnny, the Mary and the family story. Each of these storylines is driven by a central plot motif: the motive of the murderer and the perpetrator's conflict of conscience in the Johnny plot, that of the seduced girl and the faithless lover in the Mary plot and finally that of the family motive of the hapless inheritance, all of them Standard motifs in classic drama from Shakespeare's Macbeth to 19th century melodrama . The work can be classified in the history of the tragic comedy , the shock of the disintegration and the fall of the family is embedded in a multitude of (situational) comic elements and scenes.

In terms of social history, Juno and the Peacock provides insights into the history of Ireland with its serious social conflicts, the rural exodus to Dublin and the precarious situation of the Dublin urban proletariat . In the portrayal of the existential problems in the urban slums , it becomes clear "how much poverty, dirt, illness, unemployment, but above all the unbearable constriction of private life, belong to the ineradicable basic experiences of every person who has gone through this milieu." Juno and the peacock not only reflects the general social history of Ireland, but also shows a precise point in the country's political history.

Johnny Boyle, through whom the political background events flow into the private family tragedy, took part in the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and was wounded in the process. Kosok writes about this in his interpretation: “As O'Casey masterfully makes clear, Johnny is not an isolated case: the one whose death he caused was in turn responsible for the death of another. The chain of suffering and mutual responsibility, which [...] can serve as a symbol for the civil war situation of 1923, becomes recognizable from the detailed stage events to the only vaguely reported death of that nameless third party. "

As a counter-position to these more general approaches to meaning, the topic of psychological experiences in the individual area is a central subject of the piece. The figure of Johnny is at the same time “a successful psychological study of the fear that arises from guilt.” With the figure of Johnny, O'Casey shaped the fate of a person who, through a single, perhaps ill-considered or hasty act, questions all the principles of his life represents.

O'Casey's drama shows human behavior in extreme situations not only with Johnny's example, but also with Mary's. Mary is first introduced through the strike in which she participates. While her mother Juno rejects any responsibility for others out of family selfishness, Mary is ready to take part in the strike for an unjustifiably dismissed colleague and thus jeopardizes her own job out of solidarity. The sacrifice she makes is ultimately passed on to the family and Juno again; the conflict between maintaining the family's livelihood on the one hand and solidarity on the other is clearly evident.

Similarly, with the character of Mary and her situation, O'Casey addresses another fundamental conflict in human coping with life: at the point in time when it is already certain that Bentham has let her down, she insists on her love for him and is not ready to condemn him. If she had only seen it as a mere means of social advancement, her reaction would certainly be different at this point. As Kosok points out, Mary's character is characterized by "the tension between the repressive conditions of her environment and her own weak attempts at intellectual and social emancipation." “Her weaknesses, the blindness from Bentham and the constant irritation towards her family can be explained by this conflict,” writes Kosok in his analysis of the drama.

The theme of passing or failing in the “trials of life” is also brought to the fore with the title character Junos. Like the other family members, she is just as unable to cope with the problem of unexpected wealth: All the useless junk in the crammed room and the gramophone that she brings along show that she is not in a position to expect what is to come Use borrowed wealth wisely. In return, however, she proves herself all the more urgently in disaster: At the news of Mary's pregnancy, unlike her raging husband, she is the only one who knows how to assess Mary's hopeless situation and who can show understanding and compassion for her. In all serious trials, she is the one in the family who has proven herself and, despite all the occasions of pessimism, carries a trace of hope into the drama. Regardless of this, however, it is neither an ideal image of the author, which everyone should emulate, nor the symbolically exaggerated image of the suffering mother, as some interpreters suggest. In spite of all her limitations, with an optimism bordering on stubbornness, however, despite all hope, she repeatedly takes up the fight for the people entrusted to her. She also symbolically bears the name of the Roman goddess who acts as guardian of the hearth and protector of marriage.

In contrast, her husband, Captain Boyle, is contrasted in the drama as the type of anti-hero , as it were in an anti-heroic drama. In tragic loneliness and powerlessness he faces the heroine Juno, who alone can cope with the chaotic conditions in the family. In the spirit of tragic comedy, however, the character of Captain Boyle is at the same time traced to the coarse suggestive, comical characters in Shakespeare's comedies .

background

Sean O'Casey took part in an eight-month strike in 1913 as secretary of the Irish Citizen Army founded by James Larkin , which was formed to protect the strikers. As a staunch socialist, however, he resigned from his office when the nationalism represented by the Irish Volunteers increasingly dominated the Irish Citizen Army . He could not identify with the renaissance of Irish culture, as the Irish Volunteers were striving for, as this appeared to him to be a movement supported by the middle class, but he identified himself with the needs of the working class, although he himself did not originally come from proletarian circles .

From 1918, after the death of his mother, O'Casey began writing for the Abbey Theater in Dublin; the great success that Juno and the Paycock received after the premiere helped to save the theater from the then threatened financial ruin.

Reception and effect

Juno and the Paycock was recognized in literary criticism as one of the most important Irish dramas of the 20th century and in some cases compared with works such as Hebbel's Maria Magdalena or Arnold Wesker's Chicken Soup With Barley (German: chicken soup with pearl barley ). In O'Casey's oeuvre, Juno and the Peacock is rated by various literary scholars as his most important work.

Film adaptations

Poster for a performance in 1930

Juno and the Paycock formed the template for a 1929 movie of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock , who wrote and directed the screenplay, starring Barry Fitzgerald , Máire O'Neill , Edward Chapman and Sara Allgood .

The play was also adapted several times for English television in 1938, 1960 and again in 1980.

literature

  • Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , pp. 8-24.
  • Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, pp. 181-200.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Juno and the Paycock was later included as a standard edition in Volume 4 of the Collected Works of Sean O'Casey. See Sean O'Casey: Collected Plays . 4 volumes. Macmillan Publishing, London 1949-51, Vol. 1., pp. 1-89.
  2. ^ Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , p. 9.
  3. ↑ In his interpretation of the piece, Fricker does not see the work as a melodrama, but speaks of clearly recognizable "melodramatic motifs". See Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, pp. 185ff.
  4. ↑ See Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , pp. 9-12.
  5. ↑ See Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , pp. 14f.
  6. ↑ See Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , pp. 15f.
  7. ↑ See Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , p. 16.
  8. ↑ See Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , p. 17.
  9. ↑ See Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , p. 18.
  10. ↑ For details, see Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Ed.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations . Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , p. 21.
  11. ^ Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1963, pp. 186f.
  12. ↑ See more detailed Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, pp. 193–197.
  13. ^ Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama - interpretations . 2nd Edition. Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1966, p. 182 f.
  14. ^ Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama - interpretations . 2nd Edition. Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1966, p. 183.
  15. ↑ See in more detail z. B. the remarks by Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, p. 13ff.
  16. ^ Juno and the Paycock in the Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 16, 2013.
  17. ↑ Juno and the Paycock (TV 1938) in the Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 16, 2013.
  18. ^ Juno and the Paycock (TV 1960) in the Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 16, 2013.
  19. ↑ Juno and the Paycock (1980) in the Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 16, 2013.

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