The Relationship And Interaction Between The Plays And Autobiographies Of Sean O'Casey

Abstract

The plays and autobiographies of Sean O'Casey are generally considered in isolation from each other as being two not only distinct, but also largely independent areas within his work. This thesis, however, embodies an approach to O'Casey's creative work as an organic whole, of which both the autobiographies and the plays are essential and interrelated parts.The writing of the autobiographies did not take place in isolation from the plays, but evolved over a period of time which was also central, and crucial, to the development of the author's work as a playwright; and each of the autobiographical volumes was written, in part or whole, while he was working too upon a play, or even plays. Since both the plays and the autobiographies are the product of the same creative imagination, the writing of plays and autobiographies contemporaneously must have , inevitably, presented countless opportunities for mutual influence between the natures of the plays and the autobiographies. And by re-integrating the autobiographical volumes into the main-stream of O'Casey's work in the order and position (with regard to the plays) in which they were written, it can be seen that such opportunities for mutual influence not only arose, but were very often utilised by the author to very great artistic effect.But the plays and autobiographies seem to have influenced each other in manifold ways and upon different levels, and the relationshipbetween them is not confined to that central period of the author'swork during which the autobiographical volumes were written, but involves also all the extant plays which were completed before the first autobiographical volume was begun, as well as all the plays which were only begun after the last autobiographical volume was completed. Indeed,as viewed through the changing perspective of the relationships of the autobiographies to successive individual plays,'the overall relationship and' interaction between the plays and autobiographies of Sean O'Casey can be seen not only to evolve in a definite and coherent, if complex, pattern, but also to assume gradually the power of being a prime force in directing the course of his dramatic work, and of being a chief source of inspiration in his creative life as a whole.