Citizenship and Narrative Form in Irish Literature Since Independence Keelan Harkin Department of Engli
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Imagining Constitutions: Citizenship and Narrative Form in Irish Literature since Independence Keelan Harkin Department of English McGill University, Montréal August 2018 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Keelan Harkin, 2018 Harkin ii Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...............iv Abstrait……………………………………………………………………………………………vi Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………..viii Introduction: Constitutional Worlds…............................................................................................1 1. The Irish Constitution and the Supreme Court………………………………………..5 2. The Nation-State and Citizenship……………………………………………………12 3. Literary Contestations, Literary Constitutions……………………………………….17 4. Inventing Irelands Beyond the Postcolonial Debates………………………………..26 5. The Corpus…………………………………………………………………………...30 Chapter One: Ambivalent Citizens.……………………………………………………………...34 1. “Midsummer Night Madness” and “Guests of the Nation”: Disillusionment and Ambivalence…………………………………………………………………………45 2. The Last September: Killing Time and the Ambivalence of the Anglo-Irish………..62 Chapter Two: Without Prophecies….…………………………………………………………....77 1. At Swim-Two-Birds against the Conclusiveness of Authority……………………….87 2. The Heather Blazing and a Crisis of Telos…………………………………………..94 3. Down by the River and the Law in a Gossamer World……………………………..106 Chapter Three: The Politics of Reliability...……………………………………………………120 1. Memory, Structure, and Motherhood in The Country Girls………………………..129 2. Unreliable Institutions in The Woman Who Walked into Doors……………………139 3. Unreliable Homes in The Gathering………………………………………………..147 Chapter Four: Why They Left.………………………………………………………………….163 Harkin iii 1. Mary Lavelle and Detachment from Patriarchal Nationalism……………………...172 2. The Leavetaking and the Politics of Narrative Order……………………………….187 3. Return, Communication, and Social Change in The Blackwater Lightship………..198 Conclusion: Repealing the Past, Imagining the Future…………………………………………210 Work Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...220 Harkin iv Abstract Ireland officially won independence from British colonial rule in 1922, which instigated a series of constitutional debates. The 1922 Free State Constitution was at the heart of the Irish Civil War and gave way in 1937 to the Irish Constitution. Since 1937, there have been thirty-six proposed amendments to the constitution; these amendments touch on social issues, state policies, and the evolving relationship between Ireland and the European Union. As the constitution defines citizenship, each new popular referendum and amendment brings about shifts in the parameters stipulating the reciprocal rights, duties, and obligations between individual citizens and the state. Since the 1970s, Irish citizens have frequently sought constitutional change as a means of negotiating the gulf between the ideals of the state and human experiences that fall outside these ideals. Since the Irish Constitution goes into great detail about areas of the law such as the family, the workplace, and religion, citizenship negotiates a hypothetical social milieu meant to represent the moral fabric of the nation. Irish writers have been integral to imagining these negotiations in various ways since independence. The social milieu outlined by the Irish state in the constitution provides writers with a groundwork on which to contest, and explore alternative versions of, ideal citizenship. Novels and short stories focus on characters who occupy, to varying degrees, the place of the permitted citizen operating within definitions of the ideal citizen. Narrative fiction also offers forms through which to imagine constitutional amendments. Open to interpretation and legal amendment, the constitution lends itself to a variety of narrative techniques. Examining a wide range of novels and two short stories, I argue that narrative fiction since independence has been integral to the social impetus for amendments to the Irish Constitution as they affect definitions Harkin v of citizenship. Chapter One illustrates how Seán O’Faoláin in “Midsummer Night Madness,” Frank O’Connor in “Guests of the Nation,” and Elizabeth Bowen in The Last September contest state definitions of belonging at the beginning of Eamon De Valera’s program of constitutional reform in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Through readings of Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two- Birds, Colm Tóibín’s The Heather Blazing, and Edna O’Brien’s Down by the River, Chapter Two establishes the need for narrative fiction to negotiate the equivalent values of citizens in the face of the limitations of the Supreme Court, despite the interpretive powers exercised by the judiciary after the 1960s. The final two chapters of the dissertation turn to intangible qualities of citizenship. Chapter Three examines Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls, Roddy Doyle’s The Woman Who Walked into Doors, and Anne Enright’s The Gathering as interrogations of reliable citizenship for Irish women; through acts of unreliability, the women who narrate each novel overcome a status quo of silence in Ireland when it comes to victims of abuse. Chapter Four re- examines the long tradition of emigration narratives through the reorganization of ideals in Kate O’Brien’s Mary Lavelle, John McGahern’s The Leavetaking, and Colm Tóibín’s The Blackwater Lightship. While citizenship creates the category of the noncitizen, in Ireland a further distinction can be made between ideal citizenship and permitted citizenship. Constitutional amendments reflect an ongoing negotiation of equivalent values amongst Irish citizens as they reframe the ideals of belonging in the nation—a negotiation in which narrative fiction plays an imaginative role. Harkin vi Abstrait L'Irlande obtint officiellement son indépendance de la domination coloniale britannique en 1922, évènement qui provoqua une série de débats constitutionnels. La Constitution de l'État libre de 1922 fut au cœur de la guerre civile irlandaise et céda la place en 1937 à la Constitution irlandaise. Depuis 1937, il y a eu trente-six amendements proposés à la Constitution; ces amendements touchent aux questions sociales, aux politiques d'État et à l'évolution des relations entre l'Irlande et l'Union européenne. Comme la Constitution définit la citoyenneté, chaque nouveau référendum populaire et chaque amendement apporte des changements dans les paramètres stipulant les droits, les devoirs et les obligations réciproques entre les citoyens et l'État. Depuis les années 1970, les citoyens irlandais se sont fréquemment tournés vers le changement constitutionnel pour négocier le fossé entre les idéaux de l'État et leurs propres expériences qui échappent à ces idéaux. Puisque la Constitution irlandaise aborde en détail les domaines du droit tels que la famille, le lieu de travail et la religion, la citoyenneté négocie un milieu social hypothétique qui est destiné à représenter le tissu moral de la nation. Les écrivains irlandais ont promulgué une imagination diversifiée de ces négociations depuis l'indépendance. Le milieu social décrit par l'État irlandais dans la Constitution fournit aux écrivains une base sur laquelle se fonder afin de contester et d’explorer des versions alternatives de la citoyenneté idéale. Les romans et les nouvelles se concentrent sur des personnages qui occupent, à divers degrés, la place du citoyen autorisé selon les définitions du citoyen idéal. La fiction narrative offre également une structure permettant d'imaginer des amendements constitutionnels. Ouvert à l'interprétation et à la modification légale, la Constitution se prête à une variété de techniques narratives. En examinant une large gamme de romans ainsi que deux Harkin vii nouvelles, je propose que la fiction narrative depuis l'indépendance a participé de façon importante à l'élan social quant aux amendements à la Constitution irlandaise qui affectent les définitions de la citoyenneté. Le premier chapitre illustre comment Seán O'Faoláin dans «Midsummer Night Madness», Frank O'Connor dans «Guests of the Nation» et Elizabeth Bowen dans The Last September contestent les définitions d'appartenance de l’État tels que spécifiées au début du programme de réforme constitutionnelle d'Eamon De Valera à la fin des années 1920 et au début des années 1930. En lisant At Swim-Two-Birds de Flann O'Brien, The Heather Blazing de Colm Tóibín et Down by the River d'Edna O'Brien, le chapitre deux établit le rôle de la fiction narrative face aux limites de la Cour suprême, malgré les pouvoirs d'interprétation exercés par le pouvoir judiciaire après les années 1960. Les deux derniers chapitres de la dissertation se tournent vers les qualités intangibles de la citoyenneté. Le chapitre trois examine The Country Girls d'Edna O'Brien, The Woman Who Walked into Doors de Roddy Doyle et The Gathering d'Anne Enright en tant qu’interrogations de citoyenneté fiable pour les femmes irlandaises; par des actes de non-fiabilité, les femmes qui racontent chaque roman surmontent un statu quo de silence en Irlande dans le cadre de victimes d'abus. Le chapitre quatre réexamine la longue tradition des récits d'émigration à travers la réorganisation des idéaux dans Mary Lavelle de Kate O'Brien, The Leavetaking de John McGahern et The Blackwater Lightship de Colm Tóibín. Alors que la citoyenneté crée naturellement la catégorie des non- citoyens, en Irlande, une distinction additionnelle peut être faite entre la citoyenneté idéale et la citoyenneté