Colonialism in John Bulls Other Island - Thesis Example

This essay tries to analyze the concept of ‘colonialism’ in John Bull’s Other Island, and the convergence and divergence between ‘Irishness’ and ‘Englishness’ through a comprehensive theme and character analysis.

George Bernard Shaw has been long regarded as one of Ireland’s exceptional public scholars, a reputation has proven correct by his comedy play about Ireland John Bull’s Other Island, which illustrates the association of Ireland with imperial Britain. In this comedy play, Shaw depicts historically based conflicts emanating from associations between individuals authorized by their British citizenship, and individuals moderated by their Irish citizenship (Kiberd 1997). Perse, it is a very good relic of the relationship between Ireland and Britain, and with its related prologues and theses, a vigorous intervention in a political domain inherently domestic and absolutely colonial (Grene 1999). Importantly for this essay, John Bull’s Other Island not only works as a comedy play but a reference for the analysis of colonialism in Irish and British history. In re-creating people, places, and issues generated among the competitions of colonial history, Shaw cultivates cultural objects as a renewable public asset.

As decades pass by, Irish drama goes back repeatedly to the theatrical substance of John Bull’s Other Island, revising what the comedy play of Shaw situates as primitive scenes. On the one hand, such revisions try to promote the unspoiled records of the national state; on the other hand, to reveal and disparage the continuous presence of oppression and exploitation in Independent Ireland, as the process of decolonization is suspended for an indefinite period and colonialism metamorphoses into neo-colonialism (Jennings 2010). This essay discusses the theory of colonialism in Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island. But before discussing the main point it is important to provide first an overview of the Irish and British colonial history which is the major issue portrayed in the play.