(Post)Colonial Discourse and the Irish Self in the Writings of J.C. Mangan

Both Gothic and postcolonial theory centre on the self and the other, and on the relationships of dominance concurrent to them. Gothic literature has traditionally explored this relationship through the dichotomy self vs. other, identifying the former with the protagonist while the latter would be e...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Jorge Fernández, Richard
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Cantabria (UC)
Repositorio:UCrea Repositorio Abierto de la Universidad de Cantabria
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unican.es:10902/24257
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10902/24257
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Postcolonial literature
Irish literature
Discourse and identity
Gothic literature
J.C. Mangan
Colonial literature
Short story
Descrição
Resumo:Both Gothic and postcolonial theory centre on the self and the other, and on the relationships of dominance concurrent to them. Gothic literature has traditionally explored this relationship through the dichotomy self vs. other, identifying the former with the protagonist while the latter would be everything else in that world. Postcolonial theory applied to Ireland has traditionally understood this axiom in the realization of the opposition Irish vs. English. The short stories of J.C. Mangan, however, challenge that axiom by further complicating a reductionist perception of the Irish (literary) scene. The main argument of the present paper, therefore, is that far from being a dichotomy, the Irish case is better understood as a triangle in which two of its vertices are fixed -Catholics/Irish and English- while the third vertex, that of the Anglo-Irish, gradually shifts positions from the English to the Irish one, following a creolization process in which they are both victims and victimizers.