"The fragments they shore up against their ruins" : Loyalism, Alienation and Fear of Change in Gary Mitchell's As the Beast Sleeps and the Force of Change

Résumé En Fr

The aim of this article is to examine how Gary Mitchell's As the Beast Sleeps and The Force of Change engage with what the Ulster poet Tom Paulin has described as "the unbudging, implacable destructiveness" of the triumphalist Loyalist ethos. In these two plays, Mitchell argues that the notion of cultural and physical resistance, not only against a hostile and encroaching world, but also towards the very concept of change itself, represents the dominant ethos of the contemporary Loyalist vision.

L'article étudie la manière dont les pièces de Gary Mitchell, As the Beast Sleeps et The Force of Change, traitent de la mentalité loyaliste triomphaliste et de son « inébranlable et implacable penchant destructeur » selon le mot du poète d'Ulster, Tom Paulin. Dans ces deux pièces, Mitchell affirme que la notion d'une résistance culturelle et physique, tant contre un monde hostile et envahissant que contre l'idée même de changement, constitue la clé de voûte de la perspective loyaliste contemporaine.