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Star of the Sea : A Postcolonial/Postmodern Voyage into the Irish Famine

Jonathan Swift

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Artistic Figures in Star of the Sea
The Role of Historical Artistic Figures in Star of the Sea

The historical artistic figures in Star of the Sea serve many diverse roles in the novel. To an even greater extent than the political figures, the novel’s artistic figures serve the role of questioning the existence of an objective truth surrounding not just the novel, but the potato famine and wider colonization of Ireland. Although not listed as political figures, many were also involved in politics of the time, through their art or otherwise, demonstrating the pervasive impact of Irish colonization on the people of Ireland, England, and abroad.

The questioning of objective truth is a particularly important theme within Star of the Sea’s artistic figures. Charles Dickens is one of the only historical figures to merit not just a mention, but several appearances in the novel, and O’Connor takes liberties with Dickens’s portrayal, implying, for example, that Dickens was inspired to write Oliver Twist based on stories told to him by Pius Mulvey (O’Connor 179). Naomi Jacobs writes in The Character of Truth: Historical Figures in Contemporary Fiction that contemporary writers ““have been directly and indirectly influenced by theories of history, character, and language that question the existence and even the desirability of factual truth, unified identity, and aesthetic perfection. Freed from the constraints that had limited use of historical figures under the reign of realism, contemporary writers are using such figures with increasing frequency to serve a variety of fictional aims” (xiv). By including Dickens in such a manner, O’Connor’s fictional aim is to question the validity of any objective truth surrounding historical events, especially as they relate to a colonized country.

Other artistic figures in Star of the Sea serve not to question the validity of historical objectivity, but to immerse readers in the culture of the time and remind them of the pervasiveness of the Irish struggle’s portrayal in art. From a passing mention of Irish poet James Clarence Mangan in a footnote to a derisive and racist mention of Irish songwriter Thomas Moore by Surgeon Mangan, we see that Irish artists also pervaded the culture of both England and Ireland. A footnote mention of Jonathan Swift, perhaps one of the most important Anglo-Irish advocating the rights of the Irish, serves the purpose of creating a nuanced portrayal of the English by reminding readers that many English and Anglo-Irish (like Swift) actively supported the Irish cause; many political figures mentioned in the novel serve this same purpose.

Jacobs writes that ““unashamed of partial truth, these writers owe no allegiance to the bogeys of accuracy and objectivity; as a result, they can find no reason not to use historical figures” (204). O’Connor’s use of artistic figures, in particular his liberties with the history of Charles Dickens and complex portrayal of Englishmen like Jonathan Swift, serves to question the validity of historical truth in the setting of a colonized country and its oppressor.

Works Cited
Jacobs, Naomi. The Character of Truth: Historical Figures in Contemporary Fiction.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. Print.

O’Connor, Joseph. Star of the Sea. Orlando: Harcourt Books, 2002. Print.
Researcher/Writer: Audrey Gunn
Technical Designers: Lindsey Atchison and Sarah Liebig
Back to Historical Figures
Jonathan Swift
“Lord Kingscout’s mention of ‘Yahoos’ and ‘Houyhnyms’ is an allusion to Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. The Yahoos are an ape-like race of degraded savages found on a rural island which is a colony of Houyhnhnm Land. The Houyhnhnms are rational horse-like beings who have enslaved the Yahoos as beasts of burden.”
-Star of the Sea, 108
Jonathan Swift, born in Dublin to English parents, did not originally seem a likely candidate to become a national hero of Ireland. Swift was given “the best possible education in Ireland” and later became a deacon in the tiny parish of Kilroot, which he found “disheartening” – he later moved to London to write for the Tory journal Examiner (Jeffares 16-19).

In 1713, Swift was made the dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. He “regarded this post as a kind of exile, deeply regretting the distance from his friends in London” (Jeffares 19). In a letter to his friend and fellow writer Alexander Pope, Swift bitterly wrote, “The best and greatest part of my life, until these eight years, I spent in England, there I made my friendships, and there I left my desires.” “I am condemned for ever to another country,” he continued, referring to Ireland (Jeffares 20). Twenty years later, he would still consider “the greatest unhappiness of his life” to be “my banishment to this miserable country” (Jeffares 27).

Nonetheless, Swift began to publish works in defense of Ireland under the pen name M. B. Draper in 1724, including his famed essay “A Modest Proposal.” This work, which Swift wrote to protest the oppression of the Irish people by their English overlords, is still read, studied, and valued today, for it has a great deal of relevance to modern issues of inequality. Almost overnight, he went from a man who deplored the country to “a popular Irish hero” and “patriot” (Jeffares 28). Swift died in 1745 as a national hero of Ireland, but his essays live on, still shockingly and disturbingly relevant.

David Merridith’s reference to the servants “trotting about like Yahoos” (108) serves the purpose of demonstrating that even though he can be respectful of the Irish (as seen in his early relationship with Mary and his care for the tenants), he is at times quite derisive towards those who serve him. The fact that Jonathan Swift is actually condemning England’s colonization of Ireland in Gulliver’s Travels (through the proxy peoples of the Yahoos and their oppressors, the Houyhnhnms) is ironically not understood, it seems, by David Merridith, from his position of power.

Works Cited
Jeffares, A. Norman. "Jonathan Swift." British Writers. Ed. Ian Scott-Kilvert. Vol. 3. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980. 15-37. Print.

O’Connor, Joseph. Star of the Sea. Orlando: Harcourt, 2002. Print.

Researcher/Writer: Audrey Gunn
Technical Designers: Lindsey Atchison and Sarah Liebig
Continue to Political Figures: Essay Analysis

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