Emigration: Compare and contrast the treatment of emigration and rural life in "The Country Boy" by John Murphy and "Philadelphia, Here I Come" by Brian Freill.

Emigration has been, and still is, a major factor in Ireland. It has been ever since the famine of 1845. Over one million people left Ireland to go to The United States Of America, and Irish people have been leaving ever since. It used to be that everyone who left, were leaving due to unemployment or lack of opportunities, but these days, even though there are a lot more jobs available and the economy is at its best ever, people are still leaving. It seems they are leaving to find adventure. They think Ireland is too small and too boring a place to spend the rest of your life in. I will be looking at two plays which deal with emigration. The first is "The Country Boy" and the second is "Philadelphia, Here I Come".

In both plays, the writer shows that boys haven't got a very good relationship with their fathers.

English: The historic Italian Market in Philadelph...

Gar duo

Curly Howard

There is a lack of communication between the father and son, and although they seem to get on with each other, they aren't very close. Although, Curly seems to have a better relationship with his father than Gar has with his father. The reason for this is, although Curly and his father can't really agree on anything, they seem to talk more and communicate on some sort of level, whereas S.B and Gar have the exact same routine every single night. S.B comes in and says exactly the says and does the exact same thing and at one point, Private Gar is mocking him and predicting everything that he is about to say and do. Gar says;

"OK, time for our nightly lesson of the English language."

And after that, he proceeds to pre-empt everything that S.B says and does, and again mocks how S.B follows the...