Joycean Ireland in Claire Keegan’s Novel “Small Things Like These”

Abstract

   The XX and XXI centuries produced numerous literary works about neglected, traumatized children going into pathological adolescence in Irish literature. James Joyce is considered one of the pioneers in writing about these themes as his novel Portrait of An Artist As A Young Man is one of the fundamental texts written about young people’s struggles in Ireland, as well as Dubliners with its three initial stories. A contemporary Irish writer Claire Keegan continues Joycean tradition of depicting crises caused by political, religious and social insecurities. This article is an examination of child abuse and the importance of individual responsibility against of the state conducted evil in Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These. 

   The essay puts emphasis on the reflection of Joycean Ireland in Keegan’s novel which is temporally and geographically distant from Dublin which Joyce openly dissects in Dubliners. The state of paralysis that state and religious institutions put Irish people in discussed by Joyce resurfaces with a new example in the novel – it is caused by so-called Magdalene laundries patronized by the Catholic church. As Keegan disclosed, the novel is a work of fiction not based on the actual stories of individuals, but Magdalene laundries truly are a shameful legacy of the Irish historical past. In these asylums nuns took in abandoned “fallen” young women and subjected them to unpaid, harsh labour while giving up their children for adoption without consent. The nuns did not even refer to these girls with their personal names, which was the policy of erasing their sense of identity. The public, although well aware of the malice happening in this place, remained silent. The protagonist of the novel, Bill Furlong, decided to rescue a girl from the nun’s captivity. Going against the silence and compliance of the society and state, his decision shows a power of individual responsibility against the joint crime of state and religious institutions. The close interpretation of the novel explores the false image of the innocent child created by the deeply religious but socially deprived community; the facade that intensely resurfaces both in Joyce’s and Keegan’s writings. They openly show that a child in any means is not protected against the evils of humanity whether it is political, social or religious. 

   The philosophical stance on the issues mentioned in the analysis goes deep to recognize social struggles as a powerful tool to keep a community paralyzed in their day-to-day life, robbing them from the capacity of focusing and recognizing the true enemy, or the injustice put upon their townsfolk. Acute criticism of Irish society in Keegan’s writings is grounded in historical facts and does not come from the trivial discontent with one’s motherland. This criticism does not come from being your own country’s enemy; depicting the truth is not an act of hatred, maybe it is even a necessity for a writer, especially for an Irish writer in this case. Like Joyce, Keegan does not shy away from the task, as it is observed that if Ireland loves you as a writer, you must be doing something wrong(Enright 2010: 133).

Bibliography:

1. Enright, A,. (2010). Punch and Poetry: The Irish Short Story in the Twenty-first Century. The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 72(1), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.72.1.0129

1. Fogarty, A. (2015). “It Was Like A Baby Crying”: Representations of the Child in Contemporary Irish Fiction. Journal of Irish Studies, 30, 13–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43737506

1. Foucault, Michel., (2012). Discipline and Punish - the Birth of the Prison. New-York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group;

1. Kaufman, Walter. (ed.). Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre. New-York: Meridian Books Inc. 

1. Keegan, K., (2023). Small Things Like This. Tbilisi: Bakur Sulakauri Publishing

1. Lynch, V. V. (2015). “Families Can Be Awful Places”: The Toxic Parents of Claire Keegan’s Fiction. New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua, 19(1), 131–146. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24624323

1. O’Hagan, S. (2010). “Claire Keegan: Short Stories Are Limited. I'm Cornered Into Writing What I Can.” Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/05/claire-keegan-short-story-interview