Wild Colonial Girl: Essays on Edna O'BrienLisa Colletta, Maureen O'Connor Since the 1960 publication of her first novel, The Country Girls, award-winning Irish writer Edna O'Brien has been both celebrated and maligned. Praised for her lyrical prose and vivid female characters and attacked for her frank treatment of sexuality and alleged sensationalism, O'Brien and her work seem always to spawn controversy, including the past banning in Ireland of several of her works. O'Brien's attention to "women's" concerns such as sex, romance, marriage, and childbirth has often relegated her to critical neglect at best and, at worst, outright contempt. This essay collection promises to be a long overdue critical reevaluation and exciting rediscovery of her oeuvre. Wild Colonial Girl situates O'Brien in Irish contexts that allow for an appraisal of her significant contribution to a specifically Irish women's literary tradition while attesting to the potency of writing against patriarchal conventions. Each chapter's clear and detailed readings of O'Brien's fiction build a convincing case for her literary, political, and cultural importance, providing an invaluable critical guide for an enriched appreciation of O'Brien and her work. |
Contents
| 3 | |
Reading and Revision in Edna OBriens Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue | 14 |
OBrien Freud Joyce | 31 |
Edna OBriens Love Objects | 58 |
Edna OBrien and the Lives of James Joyce | 78 |
The Uncanny Genre and Gender of Edna OBriens Sister Imelda | 92 |
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Wild Colonial Girl: Essays on Edna O'Brien Lisa Colletta,Maureen O'Connor No preview available - 2006 |
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abortion artistic Baba Baba's Big House biography body Breege Bugler Caithleen Catholic character child convent Country Girls Country Girls Trilogy critical Cúchulainn cultural death desire Dublin Edna O'Brien father feels female sexuality feminine Fergus film Freud gender Gloria Swanson gunman heart heimlich heroines House novel House of Splendid husband hysteria hysterical identity Ireland Irish Studies James Joyce Johnny Josie Josie’s Joyce's Julia O'Faolain Karen Morley Kate Kate's land literary literature lives London love object lover male marriage Married Bliss Mary Hooligan Mary’s Maureen O'Connor McGreevy McGreevy's memory metanarrative Molly Bloom Molly’s Mother Ireland motherhood narrative narrator never novel O'Brien's fiction Pagan Place patriarchal Pearce Penelope reader relationship represents Richard Ellmann role romance plot says sense Sigmund Freud Sister Imelda social Splendid Isolation suggests telling textual tion tradition Trilogy and Epilogue Ulysses uncanny Unheimliche University Press violence voice woman women writing York young