1. Comparative text

2. Act 1
Characters:
Jack Clitheroe (brick layer, Irish Citizen army, husband)
Nora Clitheroe (wife)
Peter Flynn (uncle)
The Young Covey (cousin)
Mrs Gogan (charwoman, tenement resident)
Bessie Burgess (fruit seller, tenement resident)
Fluther Good (carpenter, resident)
Mollser (Mrs. Gogan’s consumptive daughter)

3. Tenement slums

4. Lead up to 1916 rising

5. Comparative Modes 2018 Ordinary Level Relationships Social Setting
Hero, Heroine, Villain

6. The Setting
The play is set in the heart of the Dublin tenement slums. When the play opens it is November 1915, only a short time before the 1916 rising.The tenement house from the outset appears crowded and bustling with tenants who come into the Clitheroe household as they wish. There appears to be very little privacy or personal space. Everyone is in each other’s business, such as Mrs. Gogan. Bessie Burgess appears to be a difficult tenant who barges into the Clitheroe house in the first act. Bessie and Fluther Good seem to have problems with alcohol. Mollser is consumptive, probable a rsult of the poverty she lives in.Various people live in sections of a tenement house. The Clitheroe rooms are comfortable and attempt to be respectable, though they are still small and rather worn.

7. Fluther Good
Fluther is a carpenter. He is fixing the door knob in the Clitheroe House. He is fond of a drink and always trying to quit. He is religious and has no time for the Covey’s scientific beliefs. He is afraid of dying and constantly says ‘derogatory’ out of context. He is a humorous character.

8. Mrs. Gogan
She is constantly fidgeting and moving about. She is very nosy and constantly commenting on everything going on around her. She is judgemental and a bit jealous of Nora Clitheroe. She constantly investigates matters and items that are not her concern.

9. Nora Clitheroe
Young, pretty wife of Jack. She would like to move up in the world and out of the tenement house. She is constantly seeking respectability. She has to put up with her uncle and cousin’s antics. She tries to be a hard task master in the household and will unashamedly use her femininity to get what she wants.

10. The Young Covey
Has a scientific mind and no time for religious beliefs. He is short tempered and constantly goading and fighting with Uncle Peter and Fluther over their beliefs. He seems intelligent and interested in reading. He has no patience.

11. Peter Flynn
Appears agitated and self consumed in Act 1. He cares about his appearance and is very easily put into a rage by The Covey and takes his sword to him. He finds life in the tenement house exasperating.

12. Setting
Where is the story set? When does the action occur? What is it like to live in this world? What problems or issues are there? What is it like for men and women? What are the beliefs, religious ideas? Are there different classes? Is there conflict in this world?

13. Hero, Heroine, Villain

14. The Plough and the stars
The play is set in the heart of the Dublin tenement slums. When the play opens it is November 1915, only a short time before the 1916 rising.

15. Comparative Mode: Setting
When comparing setting to the other texts on your comparative course (ie. ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘I’m Not Scared’) you may consider the following headings:
Poverty
Alcohol
Gender
Home life
Class division
Conflict

16. Poverty The tenement house has an unmistakable air of poverty
The residents live in cramped conditions
Mollser is consumptive. Disease such as tuberculosis was very common at the time and mostly affected the poor
Nora and Jack need to take in lodgers to their tiny space to survive
Mrs. Gogan comments on the price of Nora’s hat

17. Alcohol Fluther Good is constantly trying to stay off the drink
Bessie Burgess is a loud and aggressive drunk

18. gender Traditional gender roles.
Nora Clitheroe takes the traditional role of the woman/ wife:
she scolds the Covey about his clothes and for fighting with uncle Peter
She makes the dinner as soon as she comes home
She hangs pictures and tries to make the home ‘respectable’
Jack Clitheroe takes the traditional role of the man/ husband:
He has a job as a bricklayer
He is a soldier in the Irish Citizen army
He protects Nora from Bessie Burgess

19. Home life There is no privacy in a tenement house:
The Covey and Peter Flynn are paid lodgers
The Clitheroes must sleep on a sofa in the sitting room
Bessie Burgess Barges in
Mrs. Gogan looks all around the Clitheroe home commenting as she goes along
Mollser drops in unannounced
Fluther Good is working on the doorknob
There is an open view from the street into the living room

20. Class division The tenement dwellers live in the slums
Nora would like to rise up in life, she would like to live in her own home not a tenement building. She is seen as a “snob” for this.

21. conflict
The Irish Citizen army are in operation and stirring men up to fight against the “slavery” enforced by the British occupation
Conflict between Uncle Peter and The Covey with the Covey stirring up Uncle Peter’s passionate patriotism
There is conflict between Fluther and the Covey on religious ideas. Ireland is a deeply catholic country at the time with no time for scientific thinking such as “mollycewels an’ atoms”.

22. Homework
Write two paragraphs for an essay on the setting of ‘The Plough and the stars’. Paragraph 1: Poverty Paragraph 2: Homelife

23. Relationships
Nora & Jack Clitheroe Growing distant, Jack chooses the IRA over Nora Bickering Pressured by lack of privacy Unequal