John McGahern, The Barracks

Liam Harte (University of Manchester)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Paul Delaney (Trinity College Dublin), Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1963

Places

Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Barracks portrays the last years in the life of Elizabeth Reegan, the middle-aged wife of a police sergeant in a small, unnamed Irish village during the middle decades of the last century. The narrative traces the progress of her breast cancer from her initial, intuited awareness of it, through her diagnosis and treatment in a Dublin hospital, to her final, pain-filled days at home, where she dies childless, surrounded by her step-children. Her acute consciousness of her physical decline is accompanied by a deep metaphysical anguish that stems from her inability to locate her suffering in anything other than a terrifyingly bleak existential frame. An oppressive sense of her own insignificance assails her at every turn, …

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932 words

Citation: Harte, Liam. "The Barracks". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 March 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1512, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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