Gender, the Irish Diaspora and the Spatial Politics of Home in Brian Friel’s The Loves of Cass McGuire
Resource
NTU Studies in Language and Literature, 36, 131-154
Journal
NTU Studies in Language and Literature
Journal Issue
36
Pages
131-154
Date Issued
2016-12
Date
2016-12
Author(s)
Han, C.W.
Abstract
In this paper, I aim to explore the ways in which Brian Friel, in representing the Irish diaspora through the individual experiences of Cass in The Loves of Cass
McGuire (1966), addresses the spatial issues of the diasporic experiences of Irish women, especially the home of displacement in Ireland and the home of placement outside Ireland. Two versions and conceptualizations of home embodied respectively
by the Irish patriarch at home and the migrant woman away from home confront with each other upon the return migration of the latter in this play. Therefore, The Loves of
Cass McGuire stages intricate negotiations between the nationalized imaginary of home and the gendered identity of Irish women. Furthermore, as shown in this play, home not only is a private haven of homeliness but also becomes a public site of political contestation and identity formation. An unhomely/uncanny presence, returned women migrants, like Cass, eventually lapse into physical, psychological and social homelessness, and are forced to construct a homely home of their own away from the home of origin.
Subjects
布萊恩‧傅利爾
《凱絲‧麥克吉爾的愛情故事》
家
性別
愛爾蘭離散
國族
詭異
Brian Friel
The Loves of Cass McGuire
home
gender
the Irish diaspora
nation-building
the unhomely/uncanny
Type
journal article