Identity Construction: National Identity, or Gender and Class?

Every person will identify themselves as having some sort of nationality. However, it is the conditions of classes and gender that affect the everyday lives of the individual. If the form of literature is an accurate reflection of public opinion, through the study of the novels The Wig My Father Wore, Anne Enright, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Roddy Doyle, we should see the terms by which contemporary Irish society identifies itself.

Firstly we should consider what a nation is and what represents it. As an English citizen thinks of Scotland, for example, they will be filled with images of tartan kilts and the highlands. But is this really what being Scottish is all about? Does anyone in Scotland really wear a kilt as part of their everyday life? From an English person's point of view it is possible to think of Scottish and Irish culture in the same way as that of Indian culture. This is orientalism in terms of Scotland and Ireland. An example of this is the fact that the English celebrate St. Patrick's Day purely because it is fashionable to do so, yet St Patrick's Day has no relevance to the English nation at all. This could suggest that the boundaries representing what is Scottish, Irish and English are blurring. Or indeed it could be considered to be a form of colonialism whereby Scotland and Ireland are subjective to England.

In terms of literature, perhaps the focus should be on the way different kinds of people are represented and how they represent themselves. Representation is the means by which people formulate their identity. Some may wish to discard their traditional national identity, whilst others make a strong effort to maintain it. Hence there is a continuous dialectic between received...

... middle of paper ...

... themselves in society.

Word Count 2927

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Roddy Doyle,The Woman Who Walked into Doors. Vintage 1998

Anne Enright, The Wig My Father Wore. Minerva 1996

Secondary Sources

David Craig, Scottish Literature and the Scottish People 1680-1830. Chatto and Windus 1961

Thais E. Morgan ed, Men Writing the Feminine. State University of New York Press 1994

Nancy Armstrong, Desire and Domestic Fiction; A Political History of the Novel. Oxford University Press 1987

Aileen Christianson and Alison Lumsden ed, Contemporary Scottish Women Writers. Edinburgh University Press 2000

http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergrd/scottish_lit_1/Handouts/ak_kelman.htm Last visited 04/05/05