O'Casey's Effective Play Structure in The Silver Tassie

In The Silver Tassie" by Sean O'Casey is an expressionistic play that mainly focuses on the First World War, written in 1928, the extracts that I am examining are Extracts B1 and B2, these focus on two time periods from past to future renditions from before and after the war, it shows the contrast between life before and after the war, and how the main character Harry is portrayed by the life before the war where he is shown to be strong and attractive in comparison to the future where he’s shown as weak mentally and physically, I will focus on the way the author uses structure to convey powerful meanings throughout the two extracts.

In the first Act, the author uses large amount of stage direction which gives wide indication to what is happing in the scene creating vivid detail to the play. Harry is shown as a hero as he won a football match on his last day before leaving for the war, he has a positive status as when he was “carrying… On their shoulders” and everyone was standing “Up…Up” the repetition shows that everyone is respecting him and they are excited and feeling happy about the victory.

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Harry is also being shown as “healthy stomach, lusty limbs” which emphasize that he is good looking and strong, the audience like him as he is being shown as the hero of that specific event “The picture..

The picture… of the boy that won the final” this shows that he is feeling really happy about him winning the final and it contrast the reality of the effects that he gained after the war in Act Two as he is mentally unstable and has changed physically as he is “in his chair, pushed by Susie” this makes the audience feel pity for Harry as he is not shown as strong and young and happy character that he was before the war; this shows the horror that he must have seen through the war, it also shows that he has a lower status in compare to Act One.

Another contrast that O’Casey made through stage direction is his relationship with Jessie in Act One Harry had “his arm around Jessie” this shows that he had a good relationship with her and might thought that his relationship would last after the war as Jessie favourites Harry “Harry is my favourite” this shows that she likes him but only because he’s popular “she gives her favour to the prominent and popular” this makes the audience dislike Jessie as she likes Harry only because of his fame.

In Act Two Harry’s injury make his relationship with Jessie break as when he returns home “Jessie, standing in the entrance” this shows that she is distant from him because of the state he is in, and as he is not the “hero” anymore which is ironic as he survived the war and they should be honoured to have him back, this shows that they careless which makes the audience feel angry towards the characters and Jessie. My name is only a shadow on the roll of honour” this shows how the effects of the war have changed Harry personality as he doesn’t feel like a hero anymore after all the deaths and horror he has seen in war unlike in Act One “sign of strength, sign of Victory! ” this shows how emotional he was in winning and how proud he was, while in Act Two he isn’t proud at all. “Red wine like the blood” this makes the audience have a horrible image of all the other soldiers dead in the war and feel sorry for Harry because we know that he will never recover.

When surgeon Maxwell“ Now,now,Heegan-you must try to keep quiet” this shows that they didn’t listen when Harry was talking which contrast with the beginning of the play when he was the protagonist and everyone had his attention; O’Casey is trying to put a massage across the audience to make them think about how people can forget so easily about the war, the horror that soldiers had to face, the number of soldiers deaths; the audience in 1929 while watching the play must have felt more emotionally involved as they remember how horrible and futile the war was, and the fact that people after the war ended just continued the everyday normal life without remembering the heroes. Overall O’ Casey uses a variety of techniques through structure like stage direction, and change time of periods to have a powerful effect on the audience and to make them think and emotionally involved.