A Comprehensive Study on the Plays of St. John Ervine as a Playwright

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1. St. John Ervine has been regarded as a traditional English playwright with his origin and local color as a Northern Irish writer paid little consideration so far. However, serious themes concerning Christian faith, particularly denominational conflict between Catholics and Protestants depicted in his early plays like Mixed Marriage, The Magnanimous Lover and The Orangeman indicate that his reassessment as a Northern Irish playwright is badly needed today.2. While Ervine has been giving us an impression as an out-and-out unionist, he depicted an old father desperately spellbound with rigid unionism in a critical, even reproachful way, which is quite noteworthy in connection with his biographical fact that he lost his own father as a baby.3. When Ervine was manager of Abbey Theatre in Dublin for nine months during the First World War, his political ideas and views of drama were totally incompatible with those of Abbey actors and led to produce inevitable friction, which partly caused him to leave Ireland for unionism. This rupture, therefore, deserves more attention and examination from a point of history of Irish theatre.4. Subjects of Ervine's plays are mainly characterized by generation/gender gap and conflict between individual and society. On the whole, Ervine sides with younger generation and independent female characters, as can be seen in The First Mrs. Fraser, Robert's Wife and Friends and Relations.5. Ervine's style in writing is at once communicative and very subtle in its implication and shades of meaning, sticking faithfully to the actual flow of everyday dialogues which is devoid or excessive frills.