This book examines the development of literary constructions of
Irish-American identity from the mid-nineteenth century arrival of
the Famine generation through the Great Depression. It goes beyond
an analysis of negative Irish stereotypes and shows how Irish
characters became the site of intense cultural debate regarding
American identity, with some writers imagining Irishness to be the
antithesis of Americanness, but others suggesting Irishness to be a
path to Americanization.
This study emphasizes the importance of considering how a sense
of Irishness was imagined by both Irish-American writers conscious
of the process of self-definition as well as non-Irish writers
responsive to shifting cultural concerns regarding ethnic others.
It analyzes specific iconic Irish-American characters including
Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Margaret Mitchell's Scarlet O'Hara, as
well as lesser-known Irish monsters who lurked in the American
imagination such as T.S. Eliot's Sweeney and Frank Norris'
McTeague.
As Dowd argues, in contemporary American society, Irishness has
been largely absorbed into a homogenous white culture, and as a
result, it has become a largely invisible ethnicity to many modern
literary critics. Too often, they simply do not see Irishness or do
not think it relevant, and as a result, many Irish-American
characters have been de-ethnicized in the critical literature of
the past century. This volume reestablishes the importance of Irish
ethnicity to many characters that have come to be misread as
generically white and shows how Irishness is integral to their
stories.
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