Titre : | The Right to Dream : Gender, Modernity, and the Problem of Class in Kate O'Brien's Bourgeois Bildungsromane (2019) |
Auteurs : | Naoise MURPHY, Auteur |
Type de document : | Article |
Dans : | Irish University Review (Vol 49 n 2 Autumn/Winter 2019) |
Article en page(s) : | p. 276-289 |
Langues: | Anglais |
Mots-clés : | |
Résumé : | Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the "Bildungsroman", O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the "Bildungsroman", a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the "Bildungsroman" work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood. |
Pays de publication : | Grande-Bretagne (Royaume Uni) |
Lieu de publication : | Edimbourg |
Fonds : | Médiathèque |