The Plough and the Stars (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)

At a glance:

Characters Discussed

Nora Clitheroe, an Irish woman whose husband is a member of the Citizen Army. She nearly loses her sanity when he goes off to fight on the barricades and is killed.

Jack Clitheroe, Nora’s husband, an Irish patriot who is killed in the fighting.

Peter Flynn, Nora’s uncle, a rather pathetic, ineffectual man whose patriotism is stirred by the oratory he hears.

Fluther Good, one of the tenement dwellers. He is given to heavy drinking but makes himself generally helpful to his neighbors.

Mrs. Gogan, a neighborhood woman who engages in a barroom brawl with Bessie Burgess and disapproves of Nora buying so many new clothes.

Mollser Gogan, the small daughter of Mrs. Gogan. She dies of tuberculosis and is buried in a coffin shared with Nora’s stillborn child.

Bessie Burgess, one of the tenement women. She is coarse and vigorous.

The Covey, Nora’s cousin, who is the purveyor of the author’s views concerning the poverty of the Irish and the problem of their independence.

Captain Brennan, an officer in the Irish Citizen Army and a comrade in arms of Jack Clitheroe.

Corporal Stoddart, an English soldier who escorts the coffin of Mollser Gogan and Nora’s child.

Sergeant Tinley, of the Wiltshires.

Bibliography:

Ayling, Ronald. Sean O’Casey: Modern Judgments. Nashville, Tenn.: Aurora Press, 1970. Includes valuable comments on The Plough and the Stars. Considerations of O’Casey’s poetic gifts, his use of symbols, his socialism, and his place in the Irish Dramatic Movement.

Hogan, Robert. The Experiments of Sean O’Casey. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1960. A refreshing synthesis of dramatic theory and theatrical practice. Argues that in his Dublin trilogy O’Casey is expanding his technical capacities, and that The Plough is a stage in his continuing experimentation.

Kilroy, Thomas, ed. Sean O’Casey: A Collection of Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1975. An excellent selection from leading Irish, British, and American O’Casey critics, discussing his politics, dramatic technique, and development. Represents disagreements about O’Casey’s achievement as a political dramatist.

Krause, David. Sean O’Casey: The Man and His Work. New York: Macmillan, 1975. The best study of O’Casey’s dramatic work. Describes the economic, political, and religious tensions in the Dublin of his time.

Sean O’Casey Review 3 (Spring, 1976). Special issue on The Plough and the Stars. Valuable essays on the first production, O’Casey’s realism and pacifism, socialism, the historical background, the O’Casey-Pearse relationship, and Bessie Burgess as Cathleen Ni Houlihan.