John McGahern, The Dark

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 1965

Places

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

Genres and Modes

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The Dark

is an Irish

Bildungsroman

, a bleak account of the youth of a sensitive, intelligent adolescent, young Mahoney – his first name is never revealed – growing up on a small farm in Roscommon in the west of Ireland during the 1950s. The plot is shaped around the boy’s struggles with oppressive external and internal forces, notably his violently abusive father and his anguished sexual desires, which are set against his liberating dreams of becoming a priest or a scholar. As well as being an intimately realised account of a preternaturally religious mind wrestling with doubt and uncertainty in the repressive atmosphere of pre-Vatican II Ireland, the novel is a sombre, sustained meditation on the nature of choice. The book was banned in Ireland under the 1929 Censorship of…

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922 words

Citation: Harte, Liam. "The Dark". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 March 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1134, accessed 16 April 2024.]

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