Sarah

• Reverse repetition: physical description

  • a waiflike appearance
  • more waiflike than ever
• Reverse repetition: stage positioning

  • "sitting on a low stool, her head down"
  • "sitting... on a stool... eyes keep going up to the room upstairs."
• Initial description of speech defect

  • "considered locally to be dumb and she has accepted this"
  • "grunts and makes unintelligible nasal sounds"
• Manus teaching Sarah to speak

  "Nobody's listening. Nobody hears you."
• Reverse repetition: Manus' encouragement vs apathy

  "Good... Great... Yes?"

  "Just Sarah?... Well?"
• Sarah's first spoken line, first translation from silence to speech, assertion of identity

  "My name is Sarah."
• Reverse repetition: Manus and Sarah together vs separate

  "There's nothing to stop us now."

  "There's nothing to stop you now."
• Sarah communicates through gestures

  "mimes rocking a baby... mimes pouring drinks"
• Sarah rejected at end of Act 1

  "Manus ignores Sarah."

  "Sarah moves away."
• Sarah is included by the others at the hedge school

  [Manus:] "Maybe you'd set out the stools?"

  [Bridget:] "Hold this for me, would you?"

  [Maire:] "How's Sarah?"
• Reverse repetition: Manus after receiving flowers vs after Sarah tells him about Maire + Yolland

  • "kisses the top of Sarah's head"
  • "kisses the top of her head- as if in absolution."
• Sarah's final spoken words (failed communication as Manus has left)

  "... I'm so sorry, Manus..."
• Lancey threatens Sarah into silence

  [Lancey:] "Name!"

  "mouth opens and shuts, opens and shuts."

  [Owen]: "You can tell him."

  "But Sarah cannot. And she knows she cannot."