John Bull's Other Island
Two engineers return to Ireland in 1904: Larry Doyle, an Irishman who fled to London, and his English partner Tom Broadbent, who carries romantic notions of the Emerald Isle. Broadbent expects warmth. He gets it too. He charms the entire town, including, devastatingly, Larry's sweetheart. But Shaw's comedy cuts deeper than a simple fish-out-of-water tale. Broadbent becomes a mirror for English attitudes toward Ireland: earnest, confident, utterly blind to the colonial dynamics beneath his friendliness. Larry, meanwhile, discovers that leaving Ireland didn't just change his homeland it changed what he can feel toward it. The play's brilliance lies in its refusal to let anyone off easily. The English are absurd, yes, but so are the Irish who perform welcome for them. Shaw, himself a Dublin-born Londoner, wrote his only Ireland-set play as a fierce, funny reckoning with belonging, with the lies we tell about home, and with the uncomfortable truth that you cannot miss what you chose to leave. The political specifics may be dated, but the questions are eternal: Can you go back? Do you want to? Who are you when the place that made you no longer knows your name?
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“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.””
— Bernard Shaw
“An Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination.””
— Bernard Shaw
“NORA [looking earnestly and a little doubtfully at him]. Surelyif you let one woman cry on you like that you'd never let anothertouch you.BROADBENT [conscientiously]. One should not. One OUGHT not, mydear girl. But the honest truth is, if a chap is at all apleasant sort of chap, his chest becomes a fortification that hasto stand many assaults: at least it is so in England.NORA [curtly, much disgusted]. Then you'd better marry anEnglishwoman.BROADBENT [making a wry face]. No, no: the Englishwoman is tooprosaic for my taste, too material, too much of the animatedbeefsteak about her. The ideal is what I like. Now Larry's tasteis just the opposite: he likes em solid and bouncing and ratherkeen about him. It's a very convenient difference; for we'venever been in love with the same woman.NORA. An d'ye mean to tell me to me face that you've ever been inlove before?BROADBENT. Lord! yes.NORA. I'm not your first love?BROADBENT. First love is only a little foolishness and a lot ofcuriosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantageof it. No, my dear Nora: I've done with all that long ago. Loveaffairs always end in rows. We're not going to have any rows:we're going to have a solid four-square home: man and wife:comfort and common sense--and plenty of affection, eh [he putshis arm round her with confident proprietorship]?NORA [coldly, trying to get away]. I don't want any other woman'sleavings.BROADBENT [holding her]. Nobody asked you to, ma'am. I neverasked any woman to marry me before.NORA [severely]. Then why didn't you if you're an honorable man?BROADBENT. Well, to tell you the truth, they were mostly marriedalready. But never mind! there was nothing wrong. Come! Don'ttake a mean advantage of me. After all, you must have had a fancyor two yourself, eh?””
— Bernard Shaw
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Shaw, Bernard. John Bull's Other Island. Lex, lex-books.com/book/john-bull-s-other-island-608220b3-6fcd-4688-9d4f-69674a783311.Shaw, B. (n.d.). John Bull's Other Island. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/john-bull-s-other-island-608220b3-6fcd-4688-9d4f-69674a783311Shaw, Bernard. John Bull's Other Island. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/john-bull-s-other-island-608220b3-6fcd-4688-9d4f-69674a783311.
