Colm Tóibín and Post-Nationalist Ireland: Redefining Family Through Alterity

Abstract

In nationalist Ireland, definitions of family have traditionally followed a hetero-normative and sexist pattern whereby husbands and wives fulfilled deeply unequal roles. Moreover, the notion of family has been too often idealized as a site of peace and unconditional love, its members being united by unbreakable bonds of mutual affection. In Colm Tóibín’s fiction, “traditional” families tend to be dysfunctional and the relations between their members become strained because of emotional distance, regrets and distrust. However, Tóibín’s protagonists do find their sense of home and domesticity outside the traditional parameters of family. In this regard, this paper intends to analyze the manner in which Tóibín de-stabilizes canonical definitions through his revisionist agenda and his inscription of alternative forms of family. In order to shed light on these points, I shall refer to his novels The South (1990), The Heather Blazing (1992), The Blackwater Lightship (1999) and his short stories “A Long Winter” (Mothers and Sons, 2006), “Two Women” and “The Street” (The Empty Family, 2010).

Keywords

• Alterity
• Ambiguity
• Family
• Gender Transgressions
• Post-nationalism
• Irish literature
• Revisionism