The use of the Characters

• Friel gives specific stage directions for the characters e.g. [Jack shuffles about]
• All have their own distinctive tone of voice but collectively through expression and accent they have a Donegal sound.
• Distinguishes from Jack who barely has an Irish accent left
• The sisters have dignity but their sense of fun, appetite for life and sexuality have been muted by their circumstances- they no longer have any expectations.
• The Muday's sisters' suppressed sexual and political energies break out in frenzied dance that engages audience
• They live out their lives in mean circumstances
• Humour, mutual support and refusal to break allow this play to fulfil what Friel had early identified as the function of a dramatist: to make us 'recognise that even in confusion and disillusion, strength and courage can exist, and that out of them can come a redemption of the human spirit'