Since the advent of second wave feminism in the 1960s contemporary Irish women's writing has become an increasingly vivid and important facet of Irish literature. Many Irish women have chosen to write for the modern media in the form of journalism, magazine articles, television drama or radio broadcasts, in order to reach a broad readership and gain publicity.1 They also have chosen to work in a variety of literary genres, particularly the novel and the short story. There have been some notable, if gradual, changes in many aspects of Irish women's roles and lives in general since ‘the other voice’ emerged in Irish society in the aftermath of the Eamon De Valera period in the 1960s. It is evident that many contemporary Irish women's short stories reflect some of these changes in Irish women's lives. It is also the case that some Irish female writers are active feminists or have been engaged with the women's movement; consequently, their literary works tend to be ‘gynocentric’ and consciously concerned with feminist issues. For example, one of the foremost activists of the women's movements among Irish female writers is Mary Dorcey. Dorcey is also one of the founder members of Irish women's organisations such as the Irish Gay Rights Movement (founded in 1974) and Irish Women United (founded in 1975). Other Irish female writers such as Maeve Kelly and Evelyn Conlon are also feministconscious as regards women's rights. Their short stories explicitly uncover female unrest in the face of prejudice as well as giving voice to the feminist outcry for justice. Generally speaking, there is a wide range of writing styles as well as choice of topics and representations of Irish women in short stories by contemporary Irish female writers. Some Irish women's stories, such as those by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Marilyn McLaughlin, appeared in the late 1990s and after the millennium, and consequently present assertive and independent female characters. The characterisation in these stories is in many ways in stark contrast to that in stories by earlier generations of writers in the 1980s and before like Edna O'Brien, Mary Lavin or Clare Boylan, which tend to unveil critical perspectives on women's issues through portraits of victimised women who are usually shown as powerless and tragic. 2 There appears a noticeable difference in the ways in which different generations of Irish female writers have represented Irish women, from women who were portrayed as being victimised to those who have gained their self-esteem and independence in different Irish social and historical contexts. Thus, contemporary Irish women's short stories appear to encourage a critical or feminist reading so as to challenge or subvert traditional patriarchal values and views regarding Irish women, as well as various related gender issues. It is therefore important to contextualise the effects of women's movements upon the depiction of Irish women in Irish women's writing during the past four decades.
The focus of this book is the short story form as written by Irish women during the period from the late 1960s to the present, concentrating on the representation of women's relationships, between lovers, mothers and daughters, among sisters, and the dilemmas that arise within these relationships. It is evident that many Irish women's short stories prominently focus on human relationships. Human relationships obviously play a central role in humans' lives. Human beings are associated with or identified by a variety of forms of social relationships
between them in societies. ‘The woman question’ is also largely associated with human relationships because any form of relationship, separate from the biological imperative of reproduction, is socially constructed to designate roles for people according to the structure and the system of the particular society. Irish female writers tend to reflect, in a realistic way, ‘flesh and blood’ issues (even when they rely on traditional romance themes) which link people in a social network of interactions during a period of economic, as well as social, upheaval in Ireland. The core of this book aims to analyse those relationships which are presented through ‘archetypal’ motifs, which reflect overtones of feminist awareness within the patriarchal contexts of contemporary Irish women's short stories. Here the term ‘archetypal’ refers to a broad recognition of recurrent patterns in literature as theorised by feminist scholars such as Estella Lauter and Carol Schreier Rupprecht or Annis Pratt, and to those patterns which have been studied to reveal a particular phenomenon in certain cultural contexts, namely, for the purpose of this book, the context of sexual politics. The definition of ‘archetypal,’ which originates from the term ‘archetype’ as conceived by Carl Jung, will be elaborated upon in a later section of this chapter. Firstly, however, it is essential to understand the role of women’s writings in the Irish contexts.
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