“Colonial
Control of
Husne
Jahan
De Anza College,
Bernard Shaw's Irish play John
Bull's Other Island (1904) dramatizes the issues of the use and misuse of
Irish land by landowners, agents and peasants, and the occupation and
manipulation of the same land by English colonial and capitalist forces. In Shaw's play, the
idea of the romantic appeal of Irish scenery is carefully constructed and then
deconstructed, pointing out in the process that a great deal of the concept of
the romantic appeal of Irish landscape is actually an ideological construct. John Bull's
Other Island demystifies the
Irish landscape, along with its colleens, peasants and priests and brings out
the “reality” of