Abstract:
This thesis uses both feminist and new historic theories to argue that the women's romance novels The Last September (1929) by Elizabeth Bowen and The Country Girl's Trilogy (1960, 1962, 1964) by Edna O'Brien are tragic bildungsroman that subvert and challenge the Irish patriarchal marriage expectations of their respective time periods. Both Bowen and O'Brien in their very different class and cultural idioms render such expectations as unrealistic, gender-biased, and detrimental to their heroine's sense of independent identity. Additionally, the difference between the pre-independence time period of The Last September and the post colonial, nation-building time period of The Country Girl's Trilogy provides a contrast between an Irish woman's social position before and after Ireland's Home Rule. Both novels make lasting contributions to the history and politics regarding the private sphere of domesticity during a time when Irish women were constrained socially and poltically from creating for themselves a fulfilling life in whatever sphere they may have chosen.
