“A struggle with the unfamiliar”: Irish Migration and Identity in ColmTóibín’s Brooklyn
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[1] Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela, España
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- Localización: Thresholds and Ways Forward in English Studies / coord. por María Lourdes López Ropero, Sara Prieto García-Cañedo, José Antonio Sánchez Fajardo, 2020, ISBN 978-84-1302-079-2, págs. 158-166
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
This paper aims at analysing the traumatic consequences of migration depicted in the novel by Colm Tóibín, which entail the main character’s alienation and split identity, as well as the disruption of family communication. To illustrate the traumatic impact of the experience, several references to death are used throughout the novel to describe both the way in which Eilis’s departure from Ireland to America affects the members of the family, and the detachment of Eilis from her new reality, which leads her to become a ghost figure and to question her own identity. Therefore, this paper is theoretically informed by trauma studies, which prove to be of help to understand the disruption of the subject. In addition to this, this paper will also focus on the stereotypes and expectations that affected Irish immigrants in the 1950s and how they are presented in the novel.
