Postcolonial Trauma in William Trevor’s Anglo-Irish Big House Trilogy

Abstract

This article explores William Trevor’s Big House trilogy that is set against the backdrop of the early twentieth century Anglo-Irish tensions. By interweaving postcolonial theory and trauma studies, my investigation seeks to unveil the melancholic and anti-melancholic stance in Trevor’s fiction. Through narrative experimentalism, intertextual and intratextual links and symbolism, Trevor subverts the traditional features of the Big House literary tradition, showing that traumatic colonial history can offer a redemption of sort that discloses the transformative power of literary (postcolonial) imagination.

Keywords

• Anglo-Irish Big House Fiction. Melancholia. Postcolonial Trauma Literature. William Trevor