For this week, you do not have to read a piece of literary criticism. Go ahead and finish The Gathering and let's finish this semester contemplating and reflecting on some of the themes, issues, and relationships we've garnered from our exploration into the Irish novel. Feel free to use the questions below or develop your own.
With the spectre of Liam haunting Veronica's every move, The Gathering is very much a ghost story. Avery Gordon in his book Ghostly Matters writes,
“Haunting was the language and the experiential modality by which I tried to reach an understanding of the meeting of force and meaning, because haunting is one way in which abusive systems of power make themselves known and their impacts felt in everyday life, especially when they are supposedly over and done with (slavery, for instance) or when their oppressive nature is denied (as in free labor or national security). Haunting is not the same as being exploited, traumatized, or oppressed, although it usually involves these experiences or is produced by them. What’s distinctive about haunting is that it is an animated state in which a repressed or unresolved social violence is making itself known, sometimes very directly, sometimes more obliquely. I used the term haunting to describe those singular yet repetitive instances when home becomes unfamiliar, when your bearings on the world lose direction, when the over-and-done-with comes alive, when what’s been in your blind spot comes into view. Haunting raises specters, and it alters the experience of being in time, the way we separate the past, the present, and the future. These specters or ghosts appear when the trouble they represent and symptomize is no longer being contained or repressed or blocked from view. The ghost, as I understand it, is not the invisible or some ineffable excess. The whole essence, if you can use that word, of a ghost is that it has a real presence and demands its due, your attention. Haunting and the appearance of specters or ghosts is one way, I tried to suggest, we are notified that what’s been concealed is very much alive and present, interfering precisely with those always incomplete forms of containment and repression carelessly directed toward us.” (xvi)
Drawing from Gordon's discussion of ghosts in literature, how might we theorize the presence of Liam in the novel? Why does his ghost "haunt" Veronica and what might his ghost be symbolic of? Take a section where Liam's ghost "appears" and close read that section, paying careful attention to the context around Liam's appearance and what he might be "reminding" readers of, so to speak.
On page 168, Enright writes, "This is what shame does. This is the anatomy and mechanism of a family--a whole fucking country--drowning in shame." What does Veronica mean by this statement? Given what we've read in this course, how might we trace this theme throughout some of the novels we've explored this semester?
Given that we are in engaged in a so-called "Irish Studies" course, what is the significance of Michael's character in this novel? How would you describe Veronica's ambivalence towards him? How would you describe Veronica's own self-awareness of her commercialized "Irishness"? Use examples to support your answer.
Veronica is a character who is truly struggling with the Truth of what happened regarding the violation of her brother and possibly herself by Lambert Nugent. What is the significance of Veronica's wavering of the facts? How might we thematically connect Veronica's struggle towards a "truthful" narrative with other novels we've read this semester?
No comments:
Post a Comment