O’Flaherty was born on August 28th, 1896, in Gort na gCapall, translated as “the field of horses,” on Inishmór the largest of the Aran Islands. He was born to a peasant family which plays largely into his writings along with the harshness of the Islands. Fumio Yoshioka of Okayama university, points out how it has “become, commonplace to emphasize the influence of this environment over O’Flaherty”. She shows the reader what O’Flaherty grew up in and around through the use of Patrick Sheeran’s words from his study of O’Flaherty “The Villages scattered on the rocky islands were a living witness to appalling misery and destitution. There is an old archive recording the frank voices of a parish priest who described those villages as ‘the most poverty—stricken hamlets in the kingdom, probably in the world’”. O’Flaherty himself said of the Island “I was born on a windswept rock and hate the soft growth of sun-baked lands where there is no frost in men’s bones. Swift thoughts and the swift flight of ravenous birds, and the squeal of hunted animals are to me a reality. I have seen the leaping salmon fly before the salmon-whale, and I have seen the sated buck horn his mate, and the wanderer leave his wife, in search of fresh bosoms, with the fire of joy in his eye.” (qdt in ricorso.net). Along with “There, not only extreme poverty, but the very position of the island foster in the human mind those devils of suspicion and resentment which make ingratitude seem man’s strongest vice. The surrounding sea, constantly stirred into fury by storms that cut off communication with the mainland, always maintains in the mind of the inhabitants a restless anxiety, which has a strong bearing on character, sharpening the wits and heightening the energy,...
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... O’Flaherty would pass in 1984 at the age of 88.
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In Joyce’s stories “Eveline”, “Counterparts” and the “Dead”, the theme of escape and responsibility is represented by the characters desire to flee their lives. These stories symbolize Joyce’s interpretation of life in Ireland. With careful analysis it can be inferred that the miserable situations portrayed in these stories can be directly tied into how readers may view life in Ireland. Like the characters in Dubliners people desired a better life for themselves in and out of Ireland. The themes common to these stories show an appreciation to opportunity and success in the world. The themes of escape and responsibility present in a readers mind a looking glass for viewing life and society.
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