engleski

Representations of Catholicism in Twentieth Century Irish Women's Fiction

This dissertation examines the ways the ways in which twentieth century Irish women fiction writers articulate the repressive Catholic dogma which heavily impacted on the shaping of woman's identity throughout the last century. How the selected authors tackle the unattainable ideal of femininity and the female body embodied in the Virgin Mary, how they see the role of women within the confines of Irish Catholicism, and to what extent their novels mirror the period in which they were written, are the main issues which lie in the focus of this dissertation. The texts selected for this research were written in the three different periods of twentieth-century Ireland during which time not only Irish society, but also the Irish Catholic Church underwent tremendous changes.Thus, the first set of novels was written at a time of the absolute and unquestioned nexus between the Church and State - in the thirties and forties. The second group of novels were written in the early sixties marked by the slow processes of secularization and modernization in Ireland. Finally, the third group of novels were written at the turn of the twentieth century, in the nineties. Due to wider global changes and the discovery of numerous scandals within the Catholic Church, it was the time when the influence and power of Catholicism largely declined. The dissertation sets out to analyse the nine novels by five women authors: The Ante-Room (1934), Mary Lavelle (1936), and The Land of Spices (1942) by Kate O'Brien ; The Country Girls which consists of The Country Girls (1960), The Lonely Girl (1962) and Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964) by Edna O'Brien ; and finally contemporary novels Hood (1995) by Emma Donoghue, More Bread or I'll Appear (2000) by Emer Martin and What are You Like (2000) by Anne Enright. Chapter One contextualizes Irish Catholicism and its enormous impact on virtually every segment of Irish life, but also on Irish literature throughout the last century. Until the last decades of the twentieth century, Irish society was marked by the tacit alliance between the Church and State and the repressive Catholic ethos / discourse / teaching / which mostly concentrated on containing and policing the sexual behaviour of the Irish. This chapter puts particular emphasis on how this obsession influenced women’s lives and women’s sexuality throughout the century. Acknowledged only as wife/mother, the Irish woman mostly spent her life in hard-to-believe and dangerous ignorance about her body and its reproductive biology. However, following the second wave of feminism in the sixties, wider global changes and the decline in the Catholic Church’s power towards the end of the century, Irish society gradually started to change (the legalization of contraception, the introduction of divorce, the circulation of abortion information, etc.). On the other hand, the influence of Catholicism on literature was mostly mirrored in the fact that many excellent Irish male and female authors fell prey to the Censorship Board. In the period between the late twenties and mid-seventies, Irish state censors proscribed every book which contained as much as a single mention of “immoral” conduct or which dared to criticise any segment of Irish society. Given the influence of the dominant Catholic ideology throughout the century, it comes as no surprise that authors questioned and criticized it, more or less openly. Consequently, many of the best Irish writers, such as Kate O’Brien, Edna O’Brien, John McGahern or Brian Moore were driven into Joycean exile. This chapter also emphasizes the fact that in the eighties and nineties, contemporary authors still refer to Catholicism in their fiction, but they feel no need to subvert the repressive social forces as much as their predecessors did. The conservative Catholic culture has largely given way to a more global consumerist life-style, and this phenomenon is largely reflected in their novels. The second chapter offers the analyses of the selected novels by Kate O’Brien and Edna O’Brien, following Louis Althusser’s thesis about ideological state apparatuses of religion, school and family which “interpellate” individuals. Although they write at different times, the chapter considers the fiction of both writers in the same ideological and cultural context. Edna O’Brien sets her narrative in the Ireland of her own time, in the fifties and early sixties, whereas Kate O’Brien’s characters live in Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. What heroines of both authors have in common is the fact that they are not only deeply “steeped” in religious ideology, but they are also aware of the consequences they will have to suffer if they disobey the doctrine. Devout Catholics and as much loyal daughters, sisters and fiancées in Kate O’Brien’s novels find their counterpart in one of Edna O’Brien’s protagonists in The Country Girls Trilogy, the submissive and bashful Caithleen. The sub-chapters discuss the following: to what extent their deep and sincere piety, familism and patriarchal society in which these women live, the convent education at the hands of the nuns hold their desires in check, and prevent them from having a more meaningful and spontaneous way of life. It is also argued that both Kate O’Brien and Edna O’Brien are subversive in their critique of Irish society. The subtle Kate O’Brien is at her most subversive when she offers her invented version of Catholicism through the somewhat idealised image of the Catholic school for girls in The Land of Spices. On the other hand, Edna O’Brien is much more open when she criticizes the bigoted Irish society of her time, mostly through the character of the outspoken and assertive Baba. Edna O’Brien’s heroine is here therefore observed in complete contrast to other heroines, that is as the embodiment of sheer subversion. Chapter Three focuses on the novels by the three authors of the younger generation in the context of the radical changes that swept Ireland at the turn of the twenty-first century. Apart from discussing contemporary Irish Catholic identity, this chapter also examines the collapse of the traditional Irish family and offers a new perspective on the Irish diaspora. Following in the footsteps of Edna O’Brien’s Trilogy, these writers do not flinch from openly mocking the Catholic worldview and traditionalist Ireland. Unburdened by the repressions and moral values prescribed by the already weakened Catholic Church, they articulate the once heavily tabooed subjects, especially those relating to sexuality, of course. Lesbians, transvestites or gay priests belong to a gallery of characters who now laugh at the once dominant Catholic ethos. Contrary to the initial assumptions of this project, it is significant that (these) younger authors cannot completely escape from their Catholic heritage. The final chapter draws together the conclusions after the close readings of the selected nine novels. Although the selected authors write at different times, it is quite obvious that they are compelled to articulate their relationship towards and critique of their heavy Catholic heritage. Even the works of the authors who write in the much more open, progressive and secular/ized turn-of-the-century Ireland are imbued with the recurrent motifs of upbringing and coming-of-age under the supervisory eye of the Catholic Church.The Catholic heritage is deeply ingrained in the identity of the Irish woman of the twentieth century.

Catholicism; ideology; family; repression; state apparatuses

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