Reading Dermot Bolger's 'The Holy Ground' : national identity, gender and sexuality in post-colonial Ireland

Autor: Aragay, Mireia
Rok vydání: 2021
Zdroj: Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
instname
Recercat: Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Links & Letters; 1997: Núm.: 4 Literature and Neocolonialism; p. 53-64
Popis: The first part of this essay traces a genealogy of the colonialist and nationalist discourses in Ireland, with a view to demonstrating the derivative nature of the latter and its intimate, fundamental connection with a particular construction of gender and sexuality. The roots of the feminization of Ireland in colonialist discourse are examined, as are the reasons for the systematic negation of (particularly female) sexual desire in Irish nationalist discourse, i.e. that which became the ideological founding block of the Irish Free State after 1921. On the basis of the insights gained in the first part, the essay then goes on to read Dublin playwright Dermot Bolger's The Holy Ground (l990), a one-act motiologue spoken by midde-aged, midde-class Monica, where the author, it is claimed, sets out to deconstruct the nationalist myth of female identity, i.e. of the submissive, suffering, asexual Irish woman.
Databáze: OpenAIRE