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- Title
Delaying/Arrest: The Irish Short Story since 2000.
- Authors
Goodwin, Adrian
- Abstract
This paper examines the ways in which the Irish short story since 2000 is concerned with both "arrest" and "delay": the former being a certain developmental arrest in adults, and the latter a degree of growth or maturation inside the delay necessary in the maintenance of childhood innocence. Such arrest has its roots in the appropriation Freud made between this concept and male homosexuality. In recent years, such seeming arrest has also been rendered symptomatic of Irish culture itself. A 2012 conference of Irish psychologists, for example, diagnosed Irish improvidence during and after the Celtic tiger years as emblematic of a country still very much in its "adolescent stage." Stories, in particular by Kevin barry and Colin barrett, illustrate the very problems of ever properly "exiting" childhood. I analyze both writers' work for how such arrest is rendered socially abject. Conversely, stories by edna o'brien and Claire Keegan are read from the perspective of exiting childhood too quickly. employing Katherine bond Stockton's theory of lateral growth within delay, I read the work of both these women writers for how the child is sexually maturated long before she should be, and what agency, if any, is rendered possible as a result.
- Subjects
IRISH short stories; IRISH fiction; IRISH literature; IRISH novelists; BARRY, Kevin, 1969-; BARRETT, Colin; O'BRIEN, Edna, 1930-; KEEGAN, Claire
- Publication
Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 2019, Vol 42, p178
- ISSN
0703-1459
- Publication type
Article