New Beginnings and Emotional Escapism Theme Analysis

Brian Friel uses Philadelphia, Here I Come! to examine and even challenge the idea that change inherently leads to happiness. Determined to leave the small Irish town of Ballybeg in which he has spent his entire life, Gar fixates on fulfilling the American dream by moving to Philadelphia. Planning to work at a hotel, he invests himself in the grandiose notion that relocating will bring him money and a higher social status. Moreover, his decision to move imbues him with a sense of progress and forward momentum that his life otherwise lacks. As the play progresses, though, it becomes clear that moving to Philadelphia will do little to improve Gar’s life, since what he truly wants is love and happiness, not money and success. And though the play ends before Gar makes his journey to the United States, it’s apparent that his life abroad will be no better than his life in Ireland. By highlighting Gar’s futile attempt to run away from his problems, Friel suggests that people often romanticize the idea of new beginnings without actually addressing the emotions making them unhappy in the first place. As a result, the changes they make to their lives are abstract and largely meaningless. 

At the beginning of the play, Gar is nothing but excited about his journey to the United States, which he will remark on the following morning. In fact, his excitement is hardly containable, as his internal voice, Private Gar, indulges various fantasies about living the American dream. As Public Gar packs, “Private” Gar enthusiastically pretends to be the president of the hotel where he’ll be working. As the two Gars act out this conversation, Private Gar says (in the voice of the president of the hotel chain where Gar will be working), “I hope you’ll be happy with us and work hard and one day maybe you’ll be president of the biggest chain of biggest hotels in the world.” Private Gar’s repetition of the word “biggest” is worth mentioning, since it underscores the extent to which he has idealized his future in the United States. Indeed, he’s obviously quite impressed by the mere idea of living in America, where everything seems to him larger and flashier than his relatively simple existence in Ballybeg. With this mindset, he fantasizes about the prospect of his job leading to rapid success, even though his future position as a hotel worker isn’t necessarily much of a step up from his role as a shop worker in his father’s store. Nonetheless, he overstates the potential for him to attain upward mobility, ultimately convincing himself that this is a good reason to move the United States.

One of the reasons Gar fixates on the idea of finding success is because he doesn’t want to consider the real reasons driving him to leave Ireland, which are strictly emotional. In reality, the American dream isn’t what has inspired him to go abroad—rather, it’s the fact that Kate, the love of his life, has married another man. Although Gar and Kate used to be in a relationship, she ended up marrying a rich young man instead of Gar because she wanted to please her parents. Unable to bear living in the same town as Kate, then, Gar decides to leave for America, where he hopes to forget about their relationship. Furthermore, Gar wants to leave Ballybeg because he’s fed up with his father’s inability to show affection. Both of these motivating factors become apparent when Kate comes to visit him on his last night in town. As he brags about how rich he’s going to become, she listens sympathetically before pointing out that his father will miss him. At the mention of his father, Gar goes on a long and impassioned rant about how he doesn’t care about Ballybeg, insisting that the town is miserable and means absolutely nothing to him, adding, “If you’re not happy and content in a place—then—then—then you’re not happy and content in a place! It’s as simple as that. I’ve stuck around this hole far too long, I’m telling you: it’s a bloody quagmire, a backwater, a dead-end!” By framing Ballybeg as a swamp capable of sucking people in and holding them back in life, Gar acts as if his hunger for progress is what’s driving him away. In truth, though, his overly-emotional response indicates that he’s simply trying to escape heartache.

By the end of the play, Gar is less sure about his decision to leave Ballybeg. This is perhaps because he knows that moving to the United States won’t actually bring him happiness. After all, it’s obvious that he doesn’t truly care about becoming rich and successful, but simply wants to put his past behind him—something he likely won’t be able to do, since he’ll still be the same person and will therefore still struggle with his relationship with his father and his disappointment surrounding his breakup with Kate. Nevertheless, he believes he must keep moving forward, thinking that any kind of change will help him combat his emotions. “Get up and keep active!” Private Gar instructs him at one point. “The devil makes work for idle hands!” It is this fear that stasis will lead to emotional misery that fuels Gar’s determination to leave Ballybeg, and even though he seems to realize at the end of the play that it will be more difficult to outrun his feelings than he’d like to think, he doesn’t let go of his plan to leave home. In turn, Friel creates a portrait of a man so unwilling to confront painful feelings that he idealizes change for the sake of change, refusing to fully accept that new horizons won’t magically solve his emotional troubles.