Student Question
How does the author criticize Catholic families and Irish social problems in The Gathering?
Quick answer:
The author criticizes Catholic families and Irish social issues by highlighting the destructive influence of the Catholic Church in Irish society. Through the Hegarty family, Anne Enright critiques the pride and shame that prevent families from addressing sins and traumas, such as sexual abuse. The novel reflects on the historical intertwining of Catholicism with Irish identity, exploring themes of guilt, victim-blaming, and the resulting societal dysfunction. It also touches on Ireland's cultural shift away from Catholic control.
Anne Enright’s The Gathering is an emotional and evocative narrative. Liam Hegarty was an alcoholic who drowned himself in the sea. The title refers to the ensuing funeral as Liam’s large Irish family returns to their childhood home to mourn his loss.
The novel is narrated by Veronica, Liam’s closest sibling, and as the plot centers around the funeral preparation, Veronica undergoes significant self-reflection as she searches for the reason Liam’s life went so far off the rails.
This introspection takes the form of flashbacks. Veronica tries to remember specifically when Liam began acting out. Throughout these flashbacks, the reader learns that Veronica and Liam lived with their grandparents for a short period when they were young, and during that time, Liam was sexually assaulted by their grandparents’ landlord.
The Hegarty family is a quintessential Irish Catholic family, and Enright uses the family to critique social issues within the...
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Irish culture. Most overwhelmingly, Enright believes that Irish families are too prideful to admit and address shortcomings. When someone is hurt, they are forced to internalize and solve the problem on their own instead of bringing that problem out into the open. This idea is heavily tied to the Catholic religion, where families have a very difficult time admitting and addressing sins.
Additionally, there is a victim-blaming mentality prevalent in the culture, which allowed for decades of both physical and sexual abuse to go without consequence, as outlined by John Banville.
References
How does the author critique Catholic families and Irish social issues in the novel?
Because the Catholic Church and Ireland are, or have been, culturally combined for centuries, it's common for Irish literature to reference Catholicism as a stalwart theme in everyday Irish life. Because Irish life and Catholic life have been culturally inextricable for so long, the influence of the church is more understood than spoken in most postmodern literature.
Since James Joyce introduced us to Stephen Dedalus' debilitating shame, Irish writers have invoked the Catholic Church as a force for sexual dysfunction—and, by extension, interpersonal distress—within Irish society, particularly regarding the dual themes of sexuality and masculinity.
In Anne Enright's The Gathering, this critique of Catholic influence is complicated by memory; however, the novel explores the panic and alienation Irish Catholics have grappled with over generations combined with a legacy of imperial oppression by the English and the resultant "troubles" throughout the island.
Enright explores the themes of the stranglehold the Catholic church has had on her family, exemplified through its size (12 children), her relationship with her mother, and how destructive guilt and shame have been not just to her and her dead brother, Liam, but her entire family over generations.
Though the circumstances of the novel are bleak, the present-day (2007) setting points to the necessary break from Catholic control most young people have considered. The novel takes place after two of the most convicting revelations regarding church hierarchy in the country: sexual abuse by clergy and mass graves in Magdalene houses. (Perhaps of note, the action occurs fewer than 10 years before the legalization of gay marriage and abortion—2015 and 2018, respectively—in Ireland, both seen as a strong rebuke of Catholic control.) The protagonist sits in the middle of this cultural shift, predicting the way Veronica, her contemporaries, and their children will confront Catholic influence and its legacy in their culture.