Sexuality and the Culture of Silence in Colm Tóibín’s “The Pearl Fishers”
ISSN: 0210-6124
Datum der Publikation: 2015
Ausgabe: 37
Nummer: 1
Seiten: 69-83
Art: Artikel
Andere Publikationen in: Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos
Zusammenfassung
Colm Tóibín�s narrator in �The Pearl Fishers� (The Empty Family, 2010) is a middle-aged homosexual man who shares dinner with two friends from school, Gráinne and Donnacha, a married couple and faithful representatives of the Irish laity. To the narrator�s surprise, Gráinne announces her intention to publish a book detailing her sexual abuse by Father Moorehouse when he was her teacher. Gráinne�s husband, Donnacha, is the man with whom the narrator had a passionate love affair during their adolescence. Donnacha enforces silence on this issue, so their story remains unspoken and consigned to secrecy. Tóibín�s short story deals with the consequences of an Irish legacy of ignorance and taboos concerning sex. This essay will thus delve into questions regarding Irish culture, the antagonistic but ambiguous connection between the Church and homosexuality, as well as the shame and silence traditionally attached to sex. Tóibín seems to adopt a critical approach to Irish society, complicating public debates surrounding Ireland�s sexual past and the Church scandals. As will be argued, Tóibín does not propose in his story a totalising and explanatory view on the nature of the Irish sexual past, but rather he offers a thorough exploration of its ambiguities and complexities.
Bibliographische Referenzen
- Bowyer, Susannah. 2010. “Queer Patriots: Sexuality and the Character of National Identity in Ireland.” Cultural Studies 24 (6): 801-20.
- Brown, Terence. 2004. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-2002. London: Harper Perennial.
- Butler, Judith. 2000. “Critically Queer.” In Gender, edited by Anna Trip, 154-67. New York: Palgrave.
- Conrad, Kathryn. 2004. Locked in the Family Cell: Gender, Sexuality and Political Agency in Irish National Discourse. Madison: U of Wisconsin P.
- Costello-Sullivan, Kathleen. 2012. Mother/Country: Politics of the Personal in the Fiction of Colm Tóibín. Bern: Peter Lang.
- Cronin, Michael. 2004. “‘He’s My Country’: Liberalism, Nationalism, and Sexuality in Contemporary Irish Gay Fiction.” Eire-Ireland 39 (3-4): 250-67.
- Donnelly, Susie and Tom Inglis. 2010. “The Media and the Catholic Church in Ireland: Reporting Clerical Child Sex Abuse.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 25 (1): 1-19.
- Ferriter, Diarmaid. (2009) 2012. Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland. London: Profile Books.
- Ferriter, Diarmaid.. 2005. The Transformations of Ireland 1900-2000. London: Profile Books.
- Foucault, Michel. (1976) 1998. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. Translated by Robert Hurley. London: Penguin Books.
- Frawley, Oona. 2008. “‘The Difficult Work of Remembering’: Tóibín and Cultural Memory.” In Reading Colm Tóibín, edited by Paul Delaney, 69-82. Dublin: The Liffey Press.
- Girvin, Brian. 2008. “Church, State, and Society in Ireland since 1960.” Eire-Ireland 43 (1-2): 74-98.
- Inglis, Tom. 1998. Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Dublin: UCD Press.
- Inglis, Tom. 2005. “Origins and Legacies of Irish Prudery: Sexuality and Social Control in Modern Ireland.” Eire-Ireland 40 (3-4): 9-36.
- Luppino, Claudia. 2012. “Art, Politics and Memory: A Conversation with Colm Tóibín.” Studi Irlandesi 2: 455-72.
- Mac Gréil, Micheál. 1997. Prejudice in Ireland Revisited. Maynooth: Survey and Research Unit.
- Murphy, Robinson. 2009. “The Politics of Rebirth in Colm Tóibín’s ‘Three Friends’ and ‘A Long Winter.’” Irish Studies Review 17 (4): 485-98.
- Ryan, Matthew. 2008. “Abstract Homes: Deterritorialisation and Reterritorialisation in the Work of Colm Tóibín.” Irish Studies Review 16 (1): 19-32.
- Smith, James M. 2004. “The Politics of Sexual Knowledge: The Origins of Ireland’s Containment Culture and the Carrigan Report (1931).” Journal of the History of Sexuality 13 (2): 208-33.
- Tóibín, Colm. 1999. The Blackwater Lightship. London: Picador.
- Tóibín, Colm 2001. Love in a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodóvar. London: MacMillan.
- Tóibín, Colm. 2010a. “Among the Flutterers.” London Review of Books 32 (16). http://www.lrb. co.uk/v32/n16/colm-toibin/among-the-flutterers.
- Tóibín, Colm. 2010b. “The Pearl Fishers.” The Empty Family, 46-89. London: Viking.
- Tóibín, Colm. 2012. The Testament of Mary. London: Penguin.
- Walshe, Eibhear. 1997. “Introduction.” In Sex, Nation and Dissent in Irish Writing, edited by Eibhear Walshe, 1-15. Cork: Cork UP.
- Walshe, Eibhear. 2008. “‘A Different Story to Tell’: The Historical Novel in Contemporary Irish Lesbian and Gay Writing.” In Facing the Other: Interdisciplinary Studies on Race, Gender and Social Justice in Ireland, edited by Borbála Faragó and Moynagh Sullivan, 137-49. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.
- Walshe, Eibhear. 2013. A Different Story: The Writings of Colm Tóibin. Sallins: Irish Academic Press.
- White, Edmund. 2012. “Breaking down the Myths about Mary.” The Irish Times: Weekend Review, November 3.