The image of the ‘big house’ has long been a central motif in Anglo-Irish literature. However, this period of calm is followed by the onslaught of winter, with the Great Famine and the rise of nationalism, which eventually loosens their grip on the Irish people and brings about their demise. Big Houses were viewed by the Irish natives as a symbol of oppression which divided Irish society into: the English speaking, land owning, Anglo-Irish Protestants; and the Catholic, Gaelic speaking, native Irish. It is this division that lies at the heart of all ‘big house’ fiction. In The Real Charlotte, Christopher Dysart, the dilettante son of the Big House, clearly illustrates this type of behaviour towards Francie Fitzpatrick, the gauche and …show more content…
They considered themselves to be Irish, but superior to the natives, and they did not agree with rising nationalism. Big House genre displays a number of recurring themes and images. Firstly, there is the actual Big House, which is a pivotal feature in such works. In The Real Charlotte, the big house is Bruff, which is home to the Dysart family. Bruff is in keeping with the image of all other Big Houses, large in comparison to surrounding abodes, adorned with long walk ways, luscious green lawns, with blooming flowers and ideally situated beside a lake. It was a symbol of elegance and refinement. It’s ‘shadow’ Big Houses could be named as Rosemount and Gurthnamuckla. They are the next step down in the property ladder, although Gurthnamuckla has the potential to become a proper big house as it was in the past, even though it requires a substantial amount of work. When Francie visits for the first time she is saddened at the pathetic disintegration of a once beautiful Georgian house: “The tall sycamores that bordered the cart track were witness to the time when it had been an avenue, and the lawn-like field was yellow in Spring with the daffodils of a former civilisation.”
Included within the anthology The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction,1[1] are the works of great Irish authors written from around three hundred years ago, until as recently as the last decade. Since one might expect to find in an anthology such as this only expressions and interpretations of Irish or European places, events or peoples, some included material could be quite surprising in its contrasting content. One such inclusion comes from the novel Black Robe,2[2] by Irish-born author Brian Moore. Leaving Ireland as a young man afforded Moore a chance to see a great deal of the world and in reflection afforded him a great diversity of setting and theme in his writings. And while his Black Robe may express little of Ireland itself, it expresses much of Moore in his exploration into evolving concepts of morality, faith, righteousness and the ever-changing human heart.
Johansen, Ib. ‘Shadows in a Black Mirror: Reflections on the Irish Fantastic from Sheridan Le Fanu to John Banville’. Nordic Irish Studies , Vol. 1, (2002).
Hoobler, Dorothy and Thomas. The Irish American Family Album. New York, NY. Oxford University press. 1995
Venturi built a home for his mother Vanna Venturi in 1963. The Venturi home is located in Chestnut Hill, PA. Venturi based the plan on a symbolic conception instead of on spatial abstraction, which he considered to be an aspect of Orthodox Modernism1. This design for his mother had a sloped roof, with the chimney becoming the center of the house. It rises up out of the roof and seems to split the house in two. It has a deliberate deadpan character. But this apparent blandness, hides the many internal complexities and contradictions of the home. This is a house that uses big and small, inside and out to counterbalance the complexity2. Complexity in combination with big scale in a small buildings achieves an appropriate architectural tension. The...
The Great Famine of 1845 lasted for many years in Ireland. During this time, many people of Ireland suffered in numerous ways. In such devastating and dark times “deaths began to mount and tragic horrific scenes ensured all over Ireland: Mass Graves, Corpses gnawed by rats, hunger marches, and roadside deaths” (Kelley 137). In these grey times for Ireland, the country battled many hardships to overcome this era. The Great Famine was historically dated from 1845-1851, although the effects of the Famine lasted until 1852 (Kelley 136). The major cause of the Famine was a disease called the blight, but there were many other aspects that caused the catastrophe in Ireland.
Garrett, Peter K., ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Dubliners. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: 1968.
The story is presented as a first-person narrative by one of four English holidaymakers who regularly visit a small hotel, Glencorn Lodge, in County Antrim (see the Map of Ireland). All the details the narrator, Milly, supplies the reader with in the introductory paragraphs indicates a lack of Irishness in the whole make-up of this group’s holiday: Glencorn Lodge is a Georgian building, the driveway of which is lined with rhododendrons (a non-indigenous species of plant); the couple who run Glencorn Lodge - the slyly named Malseeds - are English; the garden has figs, the greenhouse has apricots and peaches - and the greenhouse is presided over by ‘old Mr Saxton, another aptronymous character. Essentially the reader is given a picture not of Ireland, but of the remnants of Imperial supremacy.
Seldom hyperbolic, Joyce’s simple narrative voice is used to retain focus on the experiences and subjectivity of the characters in the short stories of Dubliners, a collection of the everyday observations on the denizens of Dublin. In keeping his stories parallel to their realistic daily lives, Joyce’s plots derive from his characters’ conflict between their individual ambitions and the bleak reality of their stagnating, declining city to which they are bound. The title is almost written ironically; though each main character is a Dubliner, they are far removed from the label. The protagonists, members of a new generation of Dubliners, are created and told in a way that disconnects them from the rest of Dublin society. But despite the round
“In place of the real mother, Enright had observed that Irish Writing traditionally either appointed ‘the iconised mother figure’, or posited an absence” (Mulhall, 2011, p. 69). Secondly, Enright uses the Irish motherhood as a very significant role in the story and the readers could relate to...
James Joyce wrote the book Dubliners at a critical period in Irish history. The book focuses on many tracks that the people of Dublin were stuck on at the time. Joyce provided insight into exactly why Dublin was so downtrodden and depressed. For my analysis I chose to write about “The Dead,” “After the Race,” and “Counterparts.” In these stories, Joyce portrays individuals whose freedom of choice leads them to continue their miserable lives through their irresponsible behaviors.
The big house is another important symbol within this story. This symbol predominantly brings about feelings of destruction within many aspects of the characters lives This is the destruction seen with Miss Martha, Lavinia, and even Belle. For Miss Martha the house was destructive on her past character and to her family. As stated before she was of a vibrant nature but, when becoming apart of the (something), she (something). When speaking to Lavinia of her about seeing the house for the first time, she reveals her real feeling on living at Tall Oaks and in the big house. She recounts, “When I arrived and saw the house, how isolated we were, I wanted only to return to Philadelphia.”, showing her sadness and reluctance to live in the big house
Throughout the tale, one sees clearly the binding ties between house and inhabitants. What was once a proud family mansion is reduced to a crumbling house, whose inhabitants are scarcely less changed. From the wasting disease of the lady Madeline, to her brother's nervous affliction, one discerns a tangible connection with their dark family home. As it weakens, so also do both brother and sister diminish, until both finally perish in a horrible demise no less fantastic then that of their house. And it is these singular features which have contrived to brand the tale upon the mind of the reader, and so inspired generations of both readers and writers. There can be no doubt that future readers will also be inspired by this tale of the horror and mysterious connections between a house and its inhabitants, “The Fall of the House of Usher.”
Meanwhile, in the 1840's, a small group formed out of the Young Ireland movement. The leader, Thomas Davis, expressed a concept of nationality embracing all who lived in Ireland regardless of creed or origin. A small insurrection in 1848 failed, but their ideas influenced the coming generations. This small nationalism was illustrated in the stories "Evelyn" and "A Painful Case." In the latter, Mr. James Duffy, despite his dislike of the "modern and pretentious" Dublin, decides to stay at least in the suburbs and commute back and forth to his house.
Throughout one of the lowest point in Ireland’s history, James Joyce genuinely felt that the political and social struggles of Dublin only continued to fuel the paralyzed state of the Irish. Consequently, Joyce’s The Dead became just one of many books that would make up his Dubliners, in which he tries desperately to call out to his country to leave their oppression, the monotony of their lives, and to come to the West for a fresh beginning and promise of growth and prosperity. This desperate cry to his country can be best described in Eveline, as Frank reaches out for his beloved Eveline and calls out, “’Come!...Come!”
... of stories Dubliners, James Joyce leads the reader to the conclusion that the Catholic Church took the role of a governing body, and that modernist movement was inhibited by the outdated ideas of the Catholic Church. The story “The Boarding House” provides the reader with excellent examples of a priest who overextended his role in society, and it has been shown that such an occurrence has negative effects of the society as a whole. The Catholic church as a burdensome entity is very well shown in Joyce’s’ the “The sisters”. The story also provides us with a good explanation of the social connotations of religion within the modernist movement. In the stories of Dubliners the legal system is replaced by the institute of religion, and it is the presence and social context of the Catholic Church which prevents the Irish community from advancement.