"Blighted Beginnings"

Coming of Age in Independent Ireland

• Author(s): Jonathan Bolton,
• Publisher: Bucknell University Press
• Pages: 266
• ISBN_10: 0838757731
  ISBN_13: 9780838757734
  
• Language: en
• Categories: Fiction / General , Literary Criticism / General , Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh , Literary Criticism / Subjects & Themes / General , Political Science / General , Political Science / World / European , Social Science / Customs & Traditions ,

Description:... "This book also looks at how authors have persistently used the bildungsroman to complicate and challenge the idealization of the family, exposing the divorce ban as symptomatic of an unrealistic notion of domestic inviolability. This study concludes with a discussion of the future of the bildungsroman in a country that has transcended many of its formative crises. This chapter considers Doyle's A Star Called Henry as a text that inaugurates a new phase in Irish coming-of-age narratives in which many of the problems of Irish life, formerly treated so earnestly and tragically, can be a source of play and humor." "By looking at a comprehensive range of novels by writers like Sean O'Faolain, Elizabeth Bowen, Edna O'Brien, and William Trevor, as well as lesser known figures like Eimar O'Duffy, Francis MacManus, and Mary Morrissy, Blighted Beginnings traces the evolving concerns of Irish writers as they pushed for a greater accommodation of individual freedoms and aspirations."--BOOK JACKET.