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Article: 'The claim of eternity': language and death in Marina Carr's Portia Coughlan.
- Article from:
- Irish University Review: a journal of Irish Studies
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Irish University Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When questioned about the centrality of death and dying in her work, Marina Carr discusses the tensions between the 'pursuit of darkness' and that of light, and of characters having to 'earn' their death, their 'release', from an earth-bound reality 'worse than death'. (1) She enlarges upon Eugene O'Neill's assertion that '[t]he tragedy of man is perhaps the only significant thing about him':
The fact that we are dying probably is the only significant thing
for all of us. And how we live, and how we die. I think that is so
important--how one dies ... It is the only significant thing
about us--that we are going to die, and that we all get it so
...