FjrF Question GenderedVoice in Some .zne of Contemporary Irish Novels by Brian Moore and John McGahern SiobhanJacqueline Holland Submittedin accordancewith the requirementsfor the degreeof Doctor Of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of English September,1997 The candidateconfirms that the work submittedis her own andthat appropriate credithas been given where reference has been made to the work of others. Abstract This thesis questionsthe use of the 'voice' metaphor in contemporaryIrish cultural studiesin order to examinethe ways in which genderedidentities are constructedin someIrish Catholic communitiesin twentieth-centuryIreland. With referenceto novels by Brian Moore and JohnMcGahern as well as to Judith Butler's theoriesof performativity and citational practices,it argues that genderedidentities are constructedthrough the repetitive citation of hegemonic cultural discourses.Ibis thesisfocuses on the ways in which genderedidentities are producedand maintainedthrough the citation of the official discoursesof the Catholic Church and the Stateas well as the more mundanediscourses related to popular nationalismand the family. The first two chaptersconcentrate on novels whoseprotagonists are trying to construct powerful identities in urban Irish society through the manipulation of gendereddiscourses. The discussionof Moore's 7he Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne identifies some of the strategies through which conventionalIrish women's voicesare constructedand questionsthe validity of the category of 'authentic' women's voices. In the chapter relating to McGahem's Yhe Pornographer, the powerful, abstractmale voice is exposedas a performativeconstruct which is sustainedonly through the abjectionof those elementswhich disrupt the narrator's performance of masculinity. The remaining chaptersconcentrate on the use of idealisedimages such as those of the 9woman-as-nation' and the iconised mother in novels by Moore and McGahem. Moore's The Mangan Inheritance provides the basis for a discussionof whether or not voices attributed to women in texts by Irish men can be read in ways that disrupt the apparent authority of Irish men's voices. This thesis discussesthe issuesraised when men participate in the deconstruction of idealised images of Irish women. The final chapter examinesthe processesthrough which conventional identities are discursively constructed and maintained in two novels by John McGahem: The Dark and Amongst Women. This thesis contendsthat through the strategic redeploymentof those voices attributed to idealised images of Irish women, voices which are conventionallyregarded as silent, patriarchal genderedidentities can be destabilisedor displaced. Tableof Contents Introduction: The Questionof GenderedVoice ChapterOne: GenderVentriloquism in TheLonely PassionofJudith 5 ChapterTwo: GenderVentriloquism: Throwing Voices in John McGahern's The Pornographer 53 ............ .... .......... ...... ........................................... ........................................ .. ChapterTkee: De-ColleenisingIrish NarrativeVoices: Genderand National Literature in Brian Moore's TheMangan Inheritance 97 . ....... ....... ............................................................................ ChapterFour Our Father,Amongst Women: Re-citing Patriarchyin John McGahern's TheDark AmongstWomen 132 and ....... .................. ..................... ....... ................................ ................. Conclusion:Questioning 182 . .... ............ ......... .... ... ........... Bibliography 185 .................................. ................................................................................................. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisors,Denis Flanneryand Loreto Todd, for their support and advice.Barry Atkins, Emma Liggins and William Stephensonhave been good friends and critics throughout the last four years. Nicky Grene and Helen Cooney encouraged my researchwhile I was teaching at Trinity and I hope their advice is registeredhere. Many friends have helpedme in my work but I owe a particular debt of thanks to Tanith James,Donna Newton and Colette Holland for their patience and kindnessat various times during the writing process.The love and support of my parents,Patrick and Betty dedicate Holland, and my sisters- Colette, Nuala and Isla - have been invaluable.I this thesis to them and to Tim Burke without whom it could not have been, happily, completed. Introduction: The Question of GenderedVoice 'Voice' is a terrn which enjoyswidespread use in the burgeoningfield of Irish Studies. Who has a voice; who has beensilenced and by whom, and who can bring their voicesto bear in new and powerful ways? These are some of the questionsthat continually resonatein debates about power and patriarchy acrossIrish historical studies,literary criticism and in contemporary poetry in particular! 'Voice' operatesas a metaphorfor the discussionof power - who has it discourse.I and how others might go about exercisingit - in written as well as verbal question the usefulnessof the 'voice' metaphorfor the subversionof establishedgendered identities and suggestthat its use actually producesthe silenceof certainvoices in Irish contexts. If a voice only registersas a voice when its acts of resistanceare sustainedand powerful, thenthe smallacts of resistanceeffected inadvertently by conventionaland conformist voices are silenced.'Voice' as metaphoralso helps to keepin placeconservative fictions of identity.The ideathat there is sucha thing as an Irish woman'svoice potentiallyreifies the categoriesof 'Irishwoman', 'Irish' and 'woman' in ways that reinforcecontemporary patriarchal power relations.The potential for the disruptionof thesecategories, which might be alteredor madeless relevantby differencesof sexualityor class,for example,is obscuredwhere 'women's voices' are homogenised.When we juxtapose the gendered opposites of 'her voice'and 'his voice' in feminist criticism, we potentially endorsethe model of binarised, genderedsubjectivities which disenfranchiseswomen and establishesmen as 'voiced' andpowerful. 'The definition of voiceI advocatein this thesisopens up the discussionof the relationshipsbetween gender and power whereverwomen are attributed voices in Irish fiction, in textsby womenor men.By posingvoice as a questionrather than as the proof of identity,I will demonstratethe strategiesthrough which delimits disenfranchises patriarchy- the gendereddistribution of powerwhich and the category of 'women'- is reiterativelyconstructed and maintained. This is a feministproject, yet I havechosen to concentrateon novelswritten by Irish men which makesubstantial use of voicesattributed to women.I am interestedin why Irish male authorsfocus on womencharacters on sucha largescale and in whetherthey chooseto confirm or subvert existing Irish genderedstereotypes in the process.Do Brian Moore and John McGahernwrite aboutIrish womenin wayswhich silencewomen's voices? Can they or should 2 they be classifiedas automaticallysilencing women when they write? Do men, inside and outside Irish literary texts, automaticallyinherit a powerful and effectivevoice? The chaptersthat follow dispute the automatic attribution of powerful voices to men in an Irish context and discussthe failures of coherencebetween sex, gender and voice in the conventional literary, religious, nationalist and popular discoursescited and exploredin the novelsof Moore and McGahem- Brian Moore's work presentsitself as an obvious candidatefor any discussionof cross- genderwriting. Many readershave praised Moore's novels- particularly The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearnd 955) and I am Mary Dunne0968) - for the perceived truthfiflness of the women's voicesthey foreground.My decisionto focus on The Lonely Passion ofJudith Hearne2 is explainedby my intention to concentrateon thosenovels in which voices are signalledas, in some way, Irish.3 John McGahem's novels present less obvious choices for discussion,here althoughthe comparativediscussion of novelsby Moore and McGahernis, in itself, not original.4 The commonground for Moore and McGahernlies in their insistentexploration of what McGahern 'the the Moore focuses,in his the in calls experimentof voice' .5 novels, on period a character'slife when certaintiescollapse. In the heightenedintensity of a moment of crisis, the frustration involved in each character's attempt to protest or re-cite previouslyý-heldtruths in a powerful voice is intimately explored and the painful processesthrough which an identity is constructedare exposedas identity collapses.In McGahem's novels,too, identity is represented as a painful and frustrating process.However, in his novels the focus on the experimentof the voice is structurednot through crisis but through a rich and deliberatenarrative style. As John Montague argues in a poem dedicatedto the novelist, McGahern's style is characterisedby 'a 6 slow exactnessI Which recreatesexperience I By ritualising its details', and this slow exactness lays bare the habitual actsthrough which identitiesare formulated. Critics' responsesto JohnMcGahern's novels differ from thoseto Moore's novels in that they have tendedto focus on the representationof familial roles rather than on the individual in 2 The later novel has stronglinks with Irish texts.Moore's Mary Dunneowes an obviousdebt to Joyce'sMolly Bloom:like Molly, Mary tells the storyof her dayfrom the vantage-pointof her bed. 3 Tbroughoutthis thesis,the term 'Irish' will be usedwith referenceto Irish Catholiccommunities.