SOURCE: "The Disintegration of Authority: A Study of the Fathers in Five Plays of Brian Friel," in Colby Library Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 3, September 1988, pp. 162-72.

In the following essay, Throne studies the features of the fathers in Friel's plays, drawing conclusions about the social and political implications of the characters.

In his introduction to Brian Friel's Selected Plays, Seamus Deane observes that several of Friel's plays "have in common an interest in the disintegration of traditional authority…." In particular, Deane is thinking of Living Quarters (1977) and The Aristocrats (1979) where that traditional authority is clearly lodged in the characters of the fathers. In Living Quarters, the father, Frank Butler, is also the commandant of the battalion stationed in Ballybeg, a recently returned hero who has carried nine wounded men to safety during U.N. service in the Middle East. The father of The Aristocrats is O'Donnell, district judge in...