Piety, Innocence, and Irishness in Alice McDermott’s Irish-American Novels
Piety, Innocence, and Irishness in Alice McDermott’s Irish-American Novels
Author(s): Claire Crabtree-SinnettSubject(s): Gender Studies
Published by: Addleton Academic Publishers
Keywords: innocence; female narrator; childhood; lack of agency
Summary/Abstract: Alice McDermott’s novels of Irish American experience, At Weddings and Wakes and Charming Billy, establish death, loss, and innocence as both foreground and background for their characters. Innocence is associated in Roman Catholic and other theologies with childhood and lack of sexual knowledge, but it also implies lack of agency and loss. National Book Award winner McDermott’s most common focus is on women characters. While her participant-observer narrators are female, she is a skillful delineator of male characters as well.
Journal: Journal of Research in Gender Studies
- Issue Year: 1/2011
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 43-54
- Page Count: 12
- Language: English
- Content File-PDF