SOURCE: Miner, Edmund J. “Homecoming: The Theme of Disillusionment in Brian Friel's Short Stories.” Kansas Quarterly 9, no. 2 (spring 1977): 92-9.

In the following essay, Miner considers the theme of disillusionment in “Among the Ruins” and “Foundry House.”

Brian Friel is probably best known to both Americans and Canadians for such commercially successful plays as The Loves of Cass McGuire and Philadelphia, Here I Come! Born in County Tyrone in 1929, he spent many years, like Bryan MacMahon, his compatriot and fellow-playwright, as a school-teacher. Since 1960, however, he has devoted himself almost exclusively to a literary career. A shareholder in the Abbey Theatre, he has been prominent in the field of contemporary Irish drama; he has also, however, earned an enviable reputation as a writer of short stories, many of which have appeared in The New Yorker. Two collections of short stories, The Saucer of Larks (1956) and The Gold in the...