Social Coercion: The Field Meets Waking Ned Devine

Abstract

“The Field” (both the film and the play by John B. Keane) and “Waking Ned Devine” are stories about village conspiracies and social coercion told in the tragic and comic mode. Fooling, deceiving, and outwitting authorities and outsiders are featured in both. At the same time, characters are remarkably similar the community leader (Bull McCabe/ Jackie O’Shea), their companion or fool figure (The Bird/ Michael O’Sullivan), the widow (Maggie Butler/ Lizzy Quinn), the prescient boy (Leamy/ Maurice), et al. Certain scenes (of bodies flying off cliffs, of priests giving sermons, etc.) are also remarkably similar. An intertextual comparison of this tragedy and comedy yields a sociological understanding of community coercion against a postcolonial background of morality and a history of subversion.