‘… that great swollen belly’: the abject maternal in some recent Northern Irish fiction

Magennis, Caroline

Abstract

This essay will consider the representation of the maternal in some contemporary Northern Irish fiction written by men. It will examine, using feminist theories of embodiment and subjectivity, the power of the maternal image in Irish literary and critical discourse. The work of Julia Kristeva, Elizabeth Grosz and Mikhail Bakhtin will be employed in this argument. The pregnant body has the power to radically unsettle order, and this essay will explore the way in which men write their fears of this all-consuming imago. Northern Irish men write out their fears of all-consuming national ideology through infanticide and grotesque mother figures and this essay will trace how this figure is complicated through political ideology in Northern Ireland. The texts under consideration will be Ripley Bogle and Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson and Resurrection Man and The Last of Deeds by Eoin McNamee, as well as a glance towards the work of Glenn Patterson as a possible alternative to the hegemonic view of the grotesque or abjected maternal.

Citation

Magennis, C. (2010). ‘… that great swollen belly’: the abject maternal in some recent Northern Irish fiction. Irish Studies Review, 18(1), 91-100. https://doi.org/10.1080/09670880903541782

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Feb 10, 2010
• Deposit Date: Jul 30, 2023
• Journal: Irish Studies Review
• Print ISSN: 0967-0882
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 91-100
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09670880903541782