Sex, Violence, and Religion in the Irish-American Domestic Novel
This chapter compares post-war Irish-American domestic novels by male and female authors, examining the influence of politics, assimilation, and ethnic identity on their plots and characters. Focusing on representative novels per decade from the 1940s to the present, the analysis finds that while both male and female writers agree that married life rarely equals domestic bliss, the authors’ gender identity determines their representation of the roles played by marriage, sexuality, and religion. The first part of the chapter examines the preponderance of adultery and gendered abuse; the second discusses attitudes towards women, sex, and sexual preference; and the third traces the movement from immigrant piety to an intellectual, independent view of the Church that acknowledges its ongoing gender hierarchy. The discussion not only reveals the progression of Irish Americans’ fictional lives since the 1940s but also examines the role of Irish-American women writers in expanding that view.