Exploration of language in Juno and the Paycock

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Exploration of language in Juno and the Paycock

Most of Juno and the paycocks realism comes from its accuracy of speech. Its Dublin intentions unerringly gain a reality of setting and of character. Even features that have an expressly dramatic purpose, like repetition, rhetoric, lyrical or biblical passages, fall easily on the ear in natural spoken rhythms. Language plays a big part in this play in the quick changes of pace mood characterisation of the play and strengthens both its comedy and its tragedy.

*Simple funny mispronunciations by Captain Jack Boyle bring comedy to the play.

*Maisie Madigan uses casual lyricism's.

*Mrs Tancred's bitter balanced elegy for her son, all against a general background of quick-witted, idiomatic repartee, full of imagery and fantasy.

*The characters manipulate their own speech for effect; Captain Boyle 's call for his drink, 'a wet-a jar-a boul!'

*Boyle himself explains that he knows the correct form, but the wrong one sounds better in his story. -'It blowed an it blowed-blew is the right word 'Joxer but blowed is what the sailors use.This conscious choice of words is evident in the use of catchphrases like Joxer's 'a darlin' buk, a daarlin' buk' this is like his personal 'signature tune', or slogan.*Joxer has his phrases but Boyles individual flavour comes from his mispronunciations caused by his failure to grasp words properly, like 'Chassis' ,'dockyments', or 'pereeogative'.

*Practically ever speech in this play contains examples of Dublin dialect mispronunciation. Typical samples include vowel sounds distorted and spelt phonetically:

-wan, wance, at wanst (one, once, at once)

-yis (yes)

-at our ayse, ayther, tay (at our ease, either, tea)

-me, be, meself (may, by,myself)

-ke...

... middle of paper ...

...rich.

*Mary would have socially been looked down apon by people, having an illegitimate child, having sex out of wedlock, this was seen as a great sin, and Mary would now have been labelled as a fallen woman, and no man in Ireland would want a fallen woman in 1922, in England she could have found love but she couldn't escape to England.

*In Ireland the men were in charge they were the main authority but as we see in Juno and the Paycock, Juno does all the work, she works as a cleaner while Jack stays at home drinking away money that he isn't even earning. *Bentham would have been of greater social status first as a school teacher then as solicitor.socially he would have been upper-middle class were as the Boyle's would have been lower, working class, even though only one person in the family worked, (Juno).

Bibliography:

Juno and the Paycock script

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