ENG 150: National Identity in Modern Irish Literature- Student Curated Display

Review by Stephen Lorenzo

Chapter 1 Review

Richard Pine, the author of The Disappointed Bridge, has a writing style which takes a bit to get used to, yet I was able to understand his points. It is clear that Pine has years of experience and an immense knowledge of Irish literature and culture in general. He has been a notable author of articles and books on Irish theatre and Irish playwrights since 1978 including Oscar Wilde and Brian Friel. He has also hosted guest lectureships in Irish studies and literature at The Centre for Irish Studies at CUA, Washington, University of Central Florida, and the Princess Grace Library, Monaco. It is safe to say that Pine has a lot of experience studying Irish literature, playwrights, and culture. Because of Pines rolodex of background information to support his points, it takes a few pages for the breakdown of Post-colonial theory to begin which is brought to light on page 60.

Pine gets into the breakdown of the theory saying, “On one side of such theory are the master discourses of positivism, history and philosophy, which represent creativity, responsibility and progress: on the other, the vexed issues of difference, race, gender, place and the experiences of famine, slavery and migration. The fertility of such a debate originates in “the mixture of imperial language and local experience” (Pine, 60). The theory of Irish post colonialism has been a very important area of cultural research in the recent years. It suggests that struggling Irelanders living under colonial rule had a major impact on the Irish community in their fight to preserve their cultural traditions. Some say that the impacts of colonial rule dwindled past the 1950’s yet there is still a strong effect lingering even today. Pine goes into his breakdown further saying, “It is essential that we recognize that an act of resistance or boundary-breaking simplifies nothing, but creates complexities, establishes a new set of boundaries, new antagonisms, new alliances, new labels – rightly or wrongly – by changing the ground on which assumptions, our ideas of what is appropriate or authentic, are built. (Pine, 60). This idea from Pine opened my eyes to something that I hadn’t thought about before. The struggles in which Irelanders were forced to deal with were relentless, yet there were also struggles on England to make the transition happen. They had to force the Irelanders to change of a culture, rules, views of others, religion, etc. All of this only further complicates things in both countries, even with Ireland being clearly the most affected. Pine does a good job of analyzing the threats and problems stemming from colonial rule. Pine has an intricate writing style in which he quotes and refers to hundreds of authors, scholars, playwriters etc.

Review by Michael Olejarczyk

Chapter 9 Review

In Chapter 9 titled “Banana Republics:Ireland and Latin America” of Richard Pine’s book titled The Disappointed Bridge: Ireland and the Post-colonial World, Pine compares and contrasts the experiences of the Irish people and the people of Latin America through their shared experiences with colonialism. To start, Pine uses the term "banana republic," which he defines as “a country, vulnerable to political instability, with a single-export crop, where the general population is subservient to vested interests, often controlled by multinational companies”(Pine, 322). Pine then explains that the term “banana republic” is often used to describe nations in Central and South America like Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Pine further explores the connection between Ireland and Latin America by using a quote from Luke Gibbons in which he describes Ireland as a “First World country, but with a Third World memory”(Pine, 322). After using this quote, Pine flat out states the similarities between Ireland and Latin America with him writing that “The facets of literary and political life which Ireland and Latin America have in common are: mystery, magical realism, and the tension and shifting boundaries between fact and fiction”(Pine, 322). Pine brings up two events that link Latin America and Ireland where compares the treatment of the separate groups by their colonizers. Pine brings up an event in Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez’s childhood in which 1,000 banana workers were killed by the Colombian police and military who were being bought by the multinational companies such as the United Fruit Company, who pretty much ran Colombia at the time. He relates this event to Bloody Sunday in Dublin in 1920, in which the British Army went to a Gaelic Football match at Croke Park and opened fire on the spectators with provocation and killed 15 people. He also relates Ireland and Latin America through these banana companies. One way that he mentions is that the aforementioned United Fruit Company bought 45% of the Fyffe Company which was a Dublin-based company. Pine mentions that because of this Ireland could be seen as a “banana republic” because they were the financial center of bananas. He mentions that although Ireland may not have been directly involved in the exploitation of Latin America for profit, they were certainly not opposed to it, as the money they made from bananas brought them much profit.

Review by Ryan Eckman

Chapter 1 Review

This is the first chapter in this book and it describes Oscar Wilde, and Karl Marx and how they debate sexuality, and other political and social aspects of life that were highly controversial at the time. This chapter also discusses some of the works by Italian sociologist, Antonio Negri. Negri talks about labor that is intended to create or alter emotional experiences in people. Mullen talks about Negri’s work and how it analyzes capitalism in modern day society. “In “Value and Affect,” Negri argues that while the contemporary agents of capitalism understand that value production is increasingly reliant on affect, capitalist power structures cannot truly measure the value of this affect; instead they can only seek to control and direct it, to market it, to discipline it at the level of its biopolitical production.” (Mullen 18). Mullen is very interested in Negri’s work because it talks about how in a capitalistic society, companies and corporations use the emotional aspect of the workforce as a tool and attempt to control it. This chapter also inputs another idea by Nergi: “The more the measure of value becomes ineffectual, the more the value of labor-power becomes determinant in production; the more political economy masks the value of (p.40) labor-power, the more labor-power is extended and intervenes in a global terrain, a bio-political terrain.” (Mullen 18). This backpacks on the previous topic and shows the basic building blocks of a capitalistic structure and how the emotional aspect of the workforce can be manipulated. This chapter also explores Wilde’s and Marx’s views on values and contributing to society. Marx describes how the use-value and the exchange-value of commodities in society operating on separate planes. The reciprocal and all-sided dependence of individuals who are indifferent to one another forms their social connection. This social bond is expressed in exchange value, by means of which alone each individual’s own activity or his product becomes an activity and a product for him; he must produce a general product—exchange value, or, the latter isolated for itself and individualized, money. On the other side, the power which each individual exercises over the activity of others or over social wealth exists in him as the owner of exchange values, of money. The individual carries his social power, as well as his bond with society, in his pocket.” (Mullen 6). According to Karl Marx, there are two sides to someone’s wealth and value. On one hand, you have to be able to produce the commodity that you want to produce to possess and exchange-value, but on the other hand, the producer of the commodity holds power over the individuals in the community because of those commodities.