Mary McCarthy, Mary Gordon, and the Irish-American Literary Tradition

Abstract

There is a distinct literary canon in the United States, composed of Irish-Catholic-American writers, which requires different modes of criticism or evaluation than other U.S. literatures, particularly the dominant, largely Protestant or Protestant-influenced, American literary canon. In addition, as a recently recognized literary tradition, many women writers have either been ignored or unnoticed because their works do not immediately fit into the evolving criteria of evaluation for the Irish-American literary tradition. My purpose in this study is not to survey the Irish-American literary canon, but to examine two women writers who have not always been admitted to an innately misogynistic Irish-Catholic tradition. Ironically, the dominant feminist literary tradition also does not know how to place Mary McCarthy and Mary Gordon (and perhaps other Irish-American women writers); feminists often are disturbed by a lurking conservativism in their works. Thus, both writers are doubly displaced. Through a cultural-religious-feminist analysis of their writings, I would like to reestablish McCarthy and Gordon within both the Irish-American literary tradition and the feminist literary tradition. In doing so, I will be addressing the following questions in an attempt to create new ways of evaluating Irish-American women’s fiction: First, what is the Irish-American literary tradition and what are its criteria for inclusion? How is an Irish heritage reflected in the writings of both male and female Irish- American writers? How is the writer’s moral perspective shaped by an Irish-Catholic religious heritage? How does a woman writer navigate among often competing identities as an orthodox Catholic, culturally Irish, intellectual, feminist, woman writer to create a space for herself and her heroines? Does Gordon’s feminism allow her heroines to transcend—to a degree—their fates? The dissertation makes use of current historical (Kirby Miller, Hasia Diner, William Shannon), cultural (Werner Sollors, Charles Fanning), religious (Paul Giles) and feminist literary criticism (including Carol Gilligan)