Where Is My Country?: From Everyday Life to the Emigration Complex in Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!

Abstract

Arguably, Brian Friel’s 1964 work Philadelphia, Here I Come! is one of the most influential plays in 20th-century Irish literature, as it focuses on emigration, a pivotal political and cultural phenomenon that recurs in both modern and contemporary Irish history. Crucially, Friel invents a protagonist with split personalities, Public Gar and Private Gar, representing the conflicted mentality of a migrant who finds it necessary to leave their motherland. By reading Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! from the perspective of migration, this paper examines the necessity of departure for Gar and the difficulty of his arrival. I argue that Gar’s conflicts are not accidental but are consistent with a typical Irish mentality. However, the play suggests that the Irish protagonist’s endeavor to shun troubles via voluntary emigration can hardly promise a better tomorrow.

Keywords

• brian friel
• philadelphia
• here i come!
• irish literature
• emigration