ABSTRACT
This chapter considers Claire Keegan’s reworking of the Irish literary tropes of austerity and entrapment. Keegan’s writing has often been compared with the mid-century Irish literary masters, such as John McGahern and Edna O’Brien. But this comparison also leads to the criticism that Keegan invests in an outdated literary style that is disengaged with the modern conditions of Celtic Tiger Ireland in which she writes. This chapter draws on a recent scholarly reassessment of the mid-century Irish literary tropes to build a critical framework; it suggests that Keegan’s reworking of the Irish literary tropes – the romance plot and the bildungsroman – shows her critique of Ireland’s socio-economic modernisation, but it also reveals her optimism for Ireland’s liberalising gender politics. In the end, this chapter also considers the limits of her reworking in the context of being a writer in a neoliberal world system.
