engleski

Aspects of Globalization in Contemporary Irish Women's Fiction

It is indisputable that Irish society has undergone an enormous sea-change in the last two decades of the 20th and at the beginning of the 21st centuries. No longer enduring the tacit alliance between the state and the Catholic church, this society has become more progressive, secular and global for the past thirty years. Today, Ireland is growing much more multicultural, opening up to Europe and the rest of the world, thus re-inscribing itself geographically, sociologically and economically on the global world map. Contemporary Irish literature has dealt with the process of change, and no longer felt the need to pillory structures that were exerting less influence (Maher, 2006, 107). The emblems of Irish identity: land, catholicism, nation and nationalism – 'the old Irish totems' – are being replaced by 'sex and drugs and rock'n'roll' in conteporary fiction (Smyth, 1997, 18). This paper sets out to examine how the aspects of globalization are reflected in the novels of the youngest generation of Irish women writers (from the mid-1990s onwards). It will try to argue that although still focused on the issues of Irish and gender identity (What it means to be an Irish woman at the turn of the century?), their thematic concerns are situated in the wider, more universal context. Rather unburdened by the heritage of the national and the Catholic, these authors create female characters, write about their hetero- and homosexual relationships, and articulate everyday situations which could be easily read as part of any European or even global culture. Dublin as the main setting of their novels, then London appearing almost as frequently, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, and even Tokyo and Havana, act as toponyms on the maps of these women, rendering their fiction international and transnational.

globalization; identity; Irish women's literature

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