The humour in Mariana Carr's 1996 play, Portia Coughlan , richly emphasises the poignant story of harrowing tragedy because it is humour that humans rely on when the depth of tragedy runs overbearingly deep, " Comedy and tragedy , however, confront man with the most extreme situations that he can experience."(Guthke.166.)

It is through these extremes in emotions that the audience can truly experience second-hand what the characters must be feeling , their loss, grief , and the sudden break from those emotions by a seemingly inapproiate comic interlude.

In Portia Coughlan , we meet Portia while she is alone suffering in the misery of her thirtieth birthday, she is terribly unhappy with the choices she and life itself have chosen for her, she is wallowing, " Ud's me birtha taday...Thirty half me life's over."(Carr.2.). We see that Portia is very unhappy about her birthday, and she feels that she has already lived half of her life and has very little living left, but there is humour in this exchange between Portia and her husband, Raphael, because after all she is only turning 30 and is been behaving as though the world has completely fallen apart, as apparent in Raphael's reaction

They have come to bring Portia a birthday gift ; a three foot white horse, when Portia sees this she exclaims, "God Ahmighty, ah may jump on an him an' ride off an him wan a' these days."(Carr.6.) Portia is torn between two worlds and has been contemplating for some time which world she chooses to live in. Her capacity for pain has cause her much uncertainty and is at the root of her promiscuity. Portia has these meaningless affairs to try and fill up the void in her heart. The space that was once filled by Gabriel. In scene three we see an exchange between Portia and her lover ,Damus Halion, while Damus has little on his mind but sex it is Portia who pleads for him to give her more than just physical attention, "Ah mane, for Jaysus sache Damus, chan't we jus' sih an' talche or d'ya noh wanta talche ta me. Why does ud allas have ta be thrashin' an sweatin' i'hta boah house?"(Carr.10.)

We learn that Blaize Scully knew of the parentage of Marianne , she knew that her son and his future wife were related ,yet, she refused to acknowledge publicly that her husband had an affair that resulted in fathering another child and let the two marry. What could one expect of siblings that reproduce, they are going to have severely abnormal children, and that is what Portia and Gabriel were, " Chem ouha tha womb howldin' hands...whim God war handin' ouh souls , he musta goh mine an' Gabriels mixed up, aither thah or he gev us jus' tha wan atwane us an' ud wint inta tha Belmont River wud him... Oh Gabriel ya had no righ' ta discard me so , to floah me an tha world as if ah war a ball a' floatsoam, ya had no righ'...(Carr.19.) Portia and Gabriel had an unnatural bound that is timeless and goes beyond the boundaries of death.

Carr, Mariana.Portia Coughlan.Boston:1996;faber and faber

Portia is haunted by Gabriel through the Belmont River, the place of Gabriel's death, the two had planned a suicide together on their fifteenth birthday and Portia let Gabriel go through with it , although she wouldn't,

Portia Coughlan is a tragedy because it is so heartbreakingly real, you want to cry for the shame of it all, " A real evaluation of the m

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Approximate Word count = 1443
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)