Beyond mourning and melancholia: women and Ireland as Beckett's lost others

Abstract

Beckett’s female characterization in his later works is, in marked contrast to his earlier work, broadly in sympathy with the notion of ‘feminine’ style and feminist concerns. Yet in his earlier texts, the female is grotesque, devouring, sexually provocative, and silenced. It can be argued that Beckett’s representations of the female and Ireland intersect, and change as his relationship to Ireland and an Anglo-Irish tradition changes. Proposing that Beckett’s self-imposed exile has influenced such changes, this thesis, using a psychoanalytic framework, traces discourses of mourning, melancholia and abjection in his works, and demonstrates how Ireland and women are often the objects of loss in the psychoanalytic model. By exploring the correlations between the representations of Ireland and the female throughout Beckett’s oeuvre, this thesis aims to shed new light on Beckett’s literary practice as well as contributing to the fields of Irish and feminist studies.