The Great Famine (1845-1852) - arguably the most devastating period of Irish history - is often
associated with a lack of or even the actual impossibility of adequate representation in
historiography and literature. Despite an extensive range of groundbreaking historical and
literary research on the Famine in the last three decades less scholarly attention has been
paid to its portrayal in contemporary historical fiction. Proposing a term 'Famine fiction' to
describe a proliferating number of works of narrative fiction about the Great Hunger this
study examines the still under-researched Irish American Trilogy (2002 2007 2010) of Joseph
O'Connor as a central contribution to this expanding corpus of 21st-century literature. Through
a systematic model of narrative worldmaking and structuralist readings of intertextual
phenomena the analysis brings to light a variety of tropes and modes which negotiate and add
to the existing cultural database of Famine imagery. Ranging from ballads and revisions of
19th-century illustrations to intertextual networks of female characters these representations
suggest overarching lenses of continuity and hope as alternative culturally productive
interpretations of the Famine narrative. Uncovering how the trilogy inspires recent artistic
and activist responses to the Great Hunger this study takes a major step toward both
acknowledging Joseph O'Connor's input to Famine fiction and advancing our understanding of the
role of the latter in shaping 21st-century cultural conceptions of the Great Irish Hunger.
TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
............................................................. ix I. INTRODUCTION
......................................................................................................
1 1. The Great Famine in Contemporary Irish Culture: Breaking Silences and Joseph O'Connor's
Trilogy as Literary Mission (Im)Possible ....................... 1 2. Joseph O'Connor's Trilogy
and Famine Fiction: Overview of Current Research
.............................................................................. 5 3. Desiderata
Central Questions and Aims of the Study .......................................... 8 4. Central
Concepts Methods and Outline of the Study ......................................... 10 II.
THROUGH THE LENS OF HUNGER: THE GREAT FAMINE AS A CULTURAL NARRATIVE
.............................................. 13 1. The Famine Emplotment: An Outline of the
Great Hunger Debate .................... 17 1.1 Political Implications: The Great Famine and
the Debate of Blame .......... 19 1.2 Transnational Dimensions: Historical Duty as the Famine
Social Debate ............................................. 22 1.3 Inexpressible and
Unspeakable but Imaginable? Silence and Crisis of Representation in Cultural Discussions of the
Famine ........................................................ 25 2. Representations of the
Great Famine from Victorian to Postmodern Fiction ..... 31 III. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL
FRAMEWORK: APPROACHING NARRATIVE WORLDMAKING IN JOSEPH O'CONNOR'S IRISH AMERICAN TRILOGY
............................................... 37 1. Textual Interplay: Intertextuality as the
Object and Method of Analysis ........... 42 1.1 Intertextual Categories: Individual and System
References Markers and Features
................................................................................. 45 1.2 Making
Connections: Intertextuality as a Method of Analysis ............... 48 2. Picture - Music -
Text: Intermedial References ................................................. 49 3. Famine
Voices: Perspective Structure and Aspects of Narrative Transmission ... 51 4. Writing History
Making World
