The contemporary moment in Irish women’s writing has been recognised as a space of “extraordinary dynamism” for women negotiating the changing landscape of gender in Ireland (Bracken and Harney-Mahajan 3). On the heels of the 2018 repeal of the Eighth Amendment, bodily autonomy and, as pertains to this discussion, narrative autonomy are significantly prevalent in both the public consciousness and contemporary writing. This article is concerned with the way autonomy and power are wielded in the use of narrative, taking as examples Emilie Pine’s personal essay collection, Notes to Self (2018), and Nicole Flattery’s “Abortion, A Love Story” from short story collection Show Them A Good Time (2019).
View More The Pen is Mightier: Narrative power in contemporary Irish women’s writingTag: narrative
Crossing the Line: Characters’ Re/actions as a Driving Force of Narrative
I have not come across many people who don’t believe that we define ourselves through actions. We are what we do; we are the sum of our actions. Whether we take an existentialist approach to subjectivity and claim that we are fully responsible for every action, whether we take a Structuralist stance and believe that our subconscious mind…
View More Crossing the Line: Characters’ Re/actions as a Driving Force of NarrativeThe Metaphorics of Virtual Depth
In his essay ‘Strange Gourmet: Taste, Waste, Proust’ Joseph Litvak discusses a tendency among marginalised youths, and especially among queer ones, to seek solace in the idea of ‘some other place, some other world, magically different from the world of family and school’ (76)…
View More The Metaphorics of Virtual DepthAuthentic Violence: The Case for Autofiction
The recent surge in the publication and study of Life-Writing in its varied forms has largely been supported by the academic community, spawning dedicated research centres in academic institutions, journals and conferences and it…
View More Authentic Violence: The Case for Autofiction