Rebels and Dubliners: Motherhood in Three Irish Texts
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Advisor
Lucy McDiarmid
Access Type
Event
Start Date
26-4-2024 9:45 AM
End Date
26-4-2024 10:44 AM
Description
My work explores representations of motherhood across several genres in Irish literature. In my essay, I look at two short stories from James Joyces Dubliners (1914): “The Boarding House” and “A Mother.” I argue the way spatiality functions in “The Boarding House” and “A Mother” reveals Mrs. Mooney’s and Mrs. Kearney’s overall ability to exercise maternal agency; it shows the extent to which their agency is circumscribed. It is the spaces themselves that act as defining factors contributing to the mothers’ abilities to engage with power structures and ultimately fail or succeed in their endeavors. I also examine two autobiographies: The Autobiography of Maud Gonne: A Servant of the Queen (1938), edited by A. Norman Jeffares and Anna MacBride White, and Kathleen Clarke’s autobiography Revolutionary Woman (1991), edited by Helen Litton. In my work I expand upon how Gonne and Clarke were able to engage in “maternalist” actions within the public sphere. The juxtaposition of Joyce, Clarke, and Gonne, offers new ways of looking at how motherhood is represented in different social classes, as well as how differing societal and historical circumstances affected mothers and their children.
Rebels and Dubliners: Motherhood in Three Irish Texts
My work explores representations of motherhood across several genres in Irish literature. In my essay, I look at two short stories from James Joyces Dubliners (1914): “The Boarding House” and “A Mother.” I argue the way spatiality functions in “The Boarding House” and “A Mother” reveals Mrs. Mooney’s and Mrs. Kearney’s overall ability to exercise maternal agency; it shows the extent to which their agency is circumscribed. It is the spaces themselves that act as defining factors contributing to the mothers’ abilities to engage with power structures and ultimately fail or succeed in their endeavors. I also examine two autobiographies: The Autobiography of Maud Gonne: A Servant of the Queen (1938), edited by A. Norman Jeffares and Anna MacBride White, and Kathleen Clarke’s autobiography Revolutionary Woman (1991), edited by Helen Litton. In my work I expand upon how Gonne and Clarke were able to engage in “maternalist” actions within the public sphere. The juxtaposition of Joyce, Clarke, and Gonne, offers new ways of looking at how motherhood is represented in different social classes, as well as how differing societal and historical circumstances affected mothers and their children.