Female Consciousness In Anne Enright's The Gathering

This thesis aims to explore female consciousness in the Irish female writer Anne Enright's novel The Gathering with reference to such feminist theorists as Kate Millet, Luce Irigaray, and Irish feminist scholar Gerardine Meaney. By positioning Enright's novel in the context of Irish political, religious and social environment, this thesis discusses the uniqueness of Irish feminism overlapped by Irish nationalism and Catholicism. Through examining how Irish patriarchal ideologies are assimilated, challenged, and negotiated by female characters in the novel, this thesis explores the repression, resistance, and resurrection of Irish women's self-consciousness in contemporary Ireland.In the first place, this thesis interrogates the detrimental effects that Irish national doctrine and religious dogma have made upon female characters' temperament, sex roles and social status, revealing the fact that Irish women's consciousness are politically and symbolically controlled by the Irish patriarchal ideology under the influence of a hybrid of nationalism and Catholicism. Next, this thesis analyzes female characters' resistance against the prescriptive Irish womanhood made by the Catholic Church and the state, demonstrating the multiplicity and complexity of Irish women's experiences. Finally, this thesis explores the ways in which the female character Veronica constructs self-defined temperament, sex roles and social status to move beyond typical patriarchal definition of Irish women and succeeds in realizing self-consciousness.In conclusion, this thesis attempts to argue that The Gathering represents Anne Enright's dissenting voice for the collective patriarchal consciousness in Ireland. By rediscovering the marginalized and negated history of Irish women, Enright critiques Irish patriarchal system, opening up the possibility where Irish women can re-establish female genealogy and embrace harmonious gender relationship in today's Ireland.