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REPRESENTATIONS OF GOTHIC CHILDREN IN CONTEMPORARY IRISH LITERATURE: A SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN PATRICK MCCABE'S THE BUTCHER BOY, SEAMUS DEANE'S READING IN THE DARK, AND ANNA BURNS' NO BONES

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Date Issued:
2013
Abstract/Description:
Ireland is not a country unfamiliar with trauma. It is an island widely known for its history with Vikings, famine, and as a colony of the English empire. Inevitably, then, these traumas surface in the literature from the nation. Much of the literature that was produced, especially after the decline in the Irish language after the Great Famine of the 1840s, focused on national identity. In the nineteenth century, there was a growing movement for Irish cultural identity, illustrated by authors John Millington Synge and William Butler Yeats; this movement was identified as the Gaelic Revival. Another movement in literature began in the nineteenth century and it reflected the social and political anxieties of the Anglo-Irish middle class in Ireland. This movement is the beginning of the Gothic genre in Irish literature. Dominated by authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, Gothic novels used aspects of the sublime and the uncanny to express the fears and apprehensions that existed in Anglo-Irish identity in the nineteenth century. My goal in writing this thesis is to examine Gothic aspects of contemporary Irish fiction in order to address the anxieties of Irish identity after the Irish War of Independence that began in 1919 and the resulting division of Ireland into two countries. I will be examining Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy, Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark, and Anna Burns' No Bones in order to evaluate their use of children amidst the trouble surrounding the formation of identity, both personal and national, in Northern Ireland. All three novels use gothic elements in order to produce an atmosphere of the uncanny (Freud); this effect is used to enlighten the theme of arrested development in national identity through the children protagonists, who are inescapably haunted by Ireland's repressed traumatic history. Specifically, I will be focusing on the use of ghosts, violence, and hauntings to illuminate the social anxieties felt by Northern Ireland after the Irish War of Independence.
Title: REPRESENTATIONS OF GOTHIC CHILDREN IN CONTEMPORARY IRISH LITERATURE: A SEARCH FOR IDENTITY IN PATRICK MCCABE'S THE BUTCHER BOY, SEAMUS DEANE'S READING IN THE DARK, AND ANNA BURNS' NO BONES.
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Name(s): Ratte, Kelly, Author
Campbell, James, Committee Chair
University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2013
Publisher: University of Central Florida
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: Ireland is not a country unfamiliar with trauma. It is an island widely known for its history with Vikings, famine, and as a colony of the English empire. Inevitably, then, these traumas surface in the literature from the nation. Much of the literature that was produced, especially after the decline in the Irish language after the Great Famine of the 1840s, focused on national identity. In the nineteenth century, there was a growing movement for Irish cultural identity, illustrated by authors John Millington Synge and William Butler Yeats; this movement was identified as the Gaelic Revival. Another movement in literature began in the nineteenth century and it reflected the social and political anxieties of the Anglo-Irish middle class in Ireland. This movement is the beginning of the Gothic genre in Irish literature. Dominated by authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, Gothic novels used aspects of the sublime and the uncanny to express the fears and apprehensions that existed in Anglo-Irish identity in the nineteenth century. My goal in writing this thesis is to examine Gothic aspects of contemporary Irish fiction in order to address the anxieties of Irish identity after the Irish War of Independence that began in 1919 and the resulting division of Ireland into two countries. I will be examining Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy, Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark, and Anna Burns' No Bones in order to evaluate their use of children amidst the trouble surrounding the formation of identity, both personal and national, in Northern Ireland. All three novels use gothic elements in order to produce an atmosphere of the uncanny (Freud); this effect is used to enlighten the theme of arrested development in national identity through the children protagonists, who are inescapably haunted by Ireland's repressed traumatic history. Specifically, I will be focusing on the use of ghosts, violence, and hauntings to illuminate the social anxieties felt by Northern Ireland after the Irish War of Independence.
Identifier: CFH0004339 (IID), ucf:45002 (fedora)
Note(s): 2013-05-01
B.A.
Arts and Humanities, Dept. of English
Bachelors
This record was generated from author submitted information.
Subject(s): Patrick McCabe
The Butcher Boy
Seamus Deane
Reading in the Dark
Anna Burns
No Bones
Contemporary Irish Literature
Contemporary Irish Fiction
Irish Fiction
Ireland
Irish Literature
Gothic
Gothic Aspects
Gothic Elements
Uncanny
Irish National Identity
Northern Ireland
Northern Irish Identity
Representations of Gothic Children
Search for Identity
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004339
Restrictions on Access: public
Host Institution: UCF

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