Pregledni rad
(RE)CONTRUCTION OF FEMALE IDENTITY AND FORMATION OF NEW PARADIGMS OF REPRESENTATION IN THE IRISH SHORT STORIES BY ELIZABETH BOWEN AND MARY LAVIN
Sanja Radmilo Derado
orcid.org/0000-0003-4004-510X
; Ekonomski fakultet, Split
Sažetak
The paper analyses the tendency of the contemporary Irish short story towards subversion of the
official representation of hybrid female identities. The analysis departs from the basic premises of
Postcolonial theory. Identifying the contemporary Irish short story as a powerful medium for the
representation of plural Irish identities, the paper situates this prose form within a wider social
and historical framework, pointing towards the formation of discourse of resistance to hegemonic
constructs within the Irish society. In order to prove the initial arguments, the paper considers
the selected stories by two Irish female authors belonging to the, so-called, mid-century
generation of the Irish short story – Elizabeth Bowen and Mary Lavin. From the perspective of
the Anglo-Irish, half Protestant-half Catholic female, Elizabeth Bowen penetrates deep inside her
class on the verge of social decline, revealing the instability of a female identity existing on the
´hyphen´ between Anglo and Irish which has historically been silenced in the public discourse.
Mary Lavin´s focus, on the other hand, moves away from the ´national´ identity towards the
sphere of the local and the intimate putting forward the phenomenon of ´the exile within the
community´, i.e. the alienation of a female figure that transgresses the dominant paradigms of
the Irish rural setting. The paper concludes that both female writers determine the female figure
as a subversive element in the Irish postcolonial society by which they strive to secure social
recognition of the hybrid Irish female identity, thus removing her from the social margins and
from the historically determined conformist behaviour.
Ključne riječi
plurality of identity; female identity; Irish short story; representation; subversion; postcolonial discourse; Elizabeth Bowen; Mary Lavin
Hrčak ID:
124916
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.6.2014.
Posjeta: 1.488 *