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Eavan Boland (Suburban Life (The Pomegranate, This Moment, White Hawthorn…
Eavan Boland
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Myth and Legend
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Love
Tale of Aeneas gives Boland a means to express how she feels about her marriage now that they have been through many trials and tribulations together. Interestingly, her husband as a young man in the past occupies a more real image than she does in the present. This myth gives her an interesting way of discussing her feelings.
The Pomegranate
Tale of Ceres and Persephone offers Boland a means to discuss a potentially difficult topic for both mother and daughter. The 'blighted stars' highlights how although suburban Ireland might not be the underworld, a mother can still have fears for her daughter and be forced to realise that her daughter is growing up, ready for new adventures, 'a child might be hungry' and she maybe put in danger from time to time as a result.
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Ireland's Victims
Child of Our Time
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'our idle talk has cost a new language.' - Boland focuses on the fact that a new language or way of speaking is needed in order to move forward, to prevent further future catastrophes from occurring.
Boland elucidates the lack of sense in the death of a child during the Dublin-Monaghan bombings in 1974: by using paradoxes - 'from your unreasoned end its reason; Its rhythm from the discord of your murder, Its motivated from the fact you can not listen.'
Famine Road
'could they not blood their knuckles on rock, suck April hailstones for water and for food? Why for that, cunning as housewives, each eyed - as if at a corner butcher - the other's buttock.' Underhand simile - making fun of the hunger of the Irish
Seems unnatural to actively want people to die. Use of language particularly cruel: 'It has gone better than we expected, Lord Trevelyan, sedtion, idleness cured in one.'
Incredibly callous treatment of Irish people during The Great Famine: 'idle as trout in light, Colonel Jones these Irish, give them no coins at all; their bones need toil, their characters no less.' Scathing use of simile.
Motherhood
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The Pomegranate
Here, Boland gives a fresh take on a mother-daughter relationship. By identifying with Persephone as a daughter and Ceres as a mother, we can see how much she has truly thought about her relationship with her daughter.
'I carried her past back whitebeams and wasps and honey-scented buddleias.' - beautiful imagery - creates sense of a safe childhood
'But I was Ceres then and I knew that winter was in store for every leaf on every tree on that road.' - she is acutely aware that her daughter must grow up.
'my child asleep beside her teen magazines, her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit.' - Boland creates a very typical image of a normal, suburban home.
However, Boland knows she cannot keep her child from growing up indefinitely, she knows she must come to terms with her becoming an adult: ' If I defer the grief, I will diminish the gift.'
The Oppression of Women
The Shadow Doll
Appearances V reality - "shell-tone spray of the seed pearls." "holding less than real stephanotis."
Sexual suppression - 'discreet about visits, quickenings and lusts."
Contrast with Boland's experience of marriage - choosing to marry. Repeating her wedding vows. Ready to submit to the institution of marriage? Not the same as for the Victorian bride, but still slightly claustrophobic? Or pushing away the oppresive nature of marriage in the past?
"Pressing down, then pressing down again. And then, locks"
Silent, like a good Victorian bride.
Suffocating, oppressing. - "under glass, under wraps." "airless glamour."
The Famine Road
Flippant choice of words in which doctor discusses the woman's inability to have a child is unsympathetic, 'anything might have caused it, spores, a childhood accident.'
Comparison between victims of Irish Famine and woman visiting doctor. Overriding metaphor of 'what is your body now if not a famine road?' - Truly hammers home the idea that Boland is attempting to make - women's bodies seem to be a site for discussion and interrogation. Can we make a comparison to 2018?
Woman reduced to a very stereotypical idea, a woman can merely perform the duties of a wife and mother, 'but take it well woman, grow your garden, keep house, goodbye.' Very strict idea of what a woman is. Language/advice is given in a very direct way. 'Goodbye' is very final.
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