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 Synopsis of The Steward of Christendom
作品導讀
Synopsis of The Steward of Christendom:
Set in the lunatic house in Baltinglass, County Wicklow, Ireland in 1932, ten years after the establishment of The Irish Free State, The Steward of Christendom represents the memories, the illusions, and present life of the seventy-five Thomas Dunne, the loyalist Catholic and former Chief Superintendent of Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), through intermittent retrospections. His memories are primarily four phases of his life: the idyllic and serene childhood with his severe father and tender mother in Kiltegan, Wicklow; the happy days in Dalkey village with his wife, Cecilia or Cissy and children; the period of Dublin Castle during and after the takeover of Dublin Castle by Michael Collins with his three grown-up daughters, Maud, Annie, and Dolly; and the three years in the hometown Kiltegan alone with his daughter Annie after retirement. The reason for Dunne's being stock in “the county home” in Baltinglass is his mental breakdown after living three years in Kiltegan. Through the permutation of various phases of life of Thomas Dunne, this play seeks to represent the identification, anxiety, and predicament of “the steward of Christendom,” the Irish servant of the British Empire in Ireland. His alienated relationships with his father, the steward of Humewood and with his son, Willie, killed during World WarⅠare foregrounded in this play despite the scattered descriptions. The play ends with the episode of the dog Shep in Thomas' childhood as a symbolic scene of “the mercy of fathers” (Barry 330) with his reconciliation with Willie in his imagination as he goes to sleep tended by Willie, the almost silent son during the whole play.
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導讀
Points or topics for discussion
1. The position, duties, and predicaments of a loyalist Catholic
a. Thomas Dunne's duty and loyalty as “a steward” (His father also as a steward)
b. Annie's harsh hostility to Michael Collins
c. Dolly's personal experience and sense of alienation
d. Their ultimate sense of rejected seclusion (numerous but brief allusions and indications)
e. The other kinds of people: Owen/Roland in Translations and other natives serving for the colonial regime
2. Thomas's identification and obsession
a. The family genealogy and servitude as the steward to Anglo-Irish Ascendancy
b. Gold: the gold uniform, the gold suit, the gold harp, the police record bound with gold, the golden DA DA
c. Feminine Queen Victoria as the emblem of The masculine British Empire
d. The paternal steward of Dublin and the Empire: the emphasis on order and peace
e. The hidden and lost history in nationalist historiography and family reminiscences: the play as the example of revisionist history and theatre
3. The structure and recollections of the play
a. The Opening and ending with childhood recollections
b. The signification of childhood recollections (the idyllic scenery, mother-son, father-son)
c. The period of Dublin Castle with his three daughters
d. The days back to Kiltegan, Wicklow and the breakdown
e. The transient allusions to the days in Dalkey village as am inspector
f. The three imaginative appearances of the ghost of Willie in gold uniform
g. The interpretations of the final memory of father, son, and the dog Shep
4. The signification of three suits in the play
a. Giving away the old bespoken suit for Patrick O'Brien to eat
b. The demand for gold color and trim in a new suit
c. The cowboy suit of Smith
d. Clothing as a metaphor and metonymy of identity, e.g. Christy's changes of clothing in The Playboy of the Western World
5. Masculinity
a. Thomas' position as the chief superintendent of DMP
b. The height of Willie and the chest of Thomas praised by Mrs O'Dea
c. Michael Collins's supreme masculinity in Thomas' recollection of their meeting
d. Masculinity and Paternity (physical violence): the baton, the big stick, and the pacifier
e. Masculinity and imperial gender ideology: the masculine dominator versus the feminine dominated
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