In his efforts to look at the reasons behind the political and
social failure of a broken and decaying society, Friel has discovered as
Seamus Deane puts it, the link between Irish temperament and Irish
talk. The volatility which arises out of the need to compensate for this
sense offailure slowly becomes a virtue. Deane contends:
Out of volatility, one can make a style; style can give
off the effect of brilliance; but the brightness of the
effect is very often in inverse ratio to the emptiness for
which it is a consolation.
('Introduction' to Friel's Selected Plays, p. 12)
The idea of the eloquent outsider is a concept with a long
tradition inlrishliterature