Overtones and Disturbances in Jamie O'Neill's Dissidence Novels

Abstract

Jamie O’Neill’s novels, Disturbance (1989), Kilbrack (1990) and, especially, At Swim, Two Boys (2001), portray Ireland as an attractive but complex nation that needs to be deconstructed and reconstructed to acquire new values and meanings. Thus, the main purpose of the novelist transforms into a heroic act to demystify (through the reuse of classic narrative style) both the moral and social constraints of normative rules and to show that  Other” readings and judgments can be made possible. Through a gender/class twofold perspective, this paper aims at distinguishing, following O’Neill’s path, the echoes and overtones that prevent Irish citizens from communicating among them (both individually and collectively). Also, it attempts as well to analyze the series of disturbances that affect the representation of Ireland as an alma mater land but rather transforms it into a saturnine stepmother.