Claire Keegan’s Use of Satire

Abstract

This essay focuses on Claire Keegan’s markedly satirical understanding of the inadequacy of quotidian reality in rural Ireland and its tragic effects on people, especially on women, as well as in Keegan’s use of the short story genre to concentrate on the quality of seeing rather than on moralizing issues – a technique which has led her way of writing to be considered cold, externalist and non-emotional. To this end, I shall explore which of the rhetorical strategies of the satirical apparatus are present in three stories from her 2007 collection Walk the Blue Fields: “Walk the Blue Fields”, “The Forester’s Daughter” and “Night of the Quicken Trees”.

Keywords

• Claire Keegan
• Short Story
• Rhetoric of Satire
• Contingency
• Rural Ireland.