Podcast 2 - Transnational Literature

The podcast episode explores the transnational nature of Irish identity. The hosts discuss the comparability of the American dream to the Irish experience and how Irish identity is shaped by both horrors and triumphs. They analyze the character of Jimmy in Joyce's After the Race as an example of learning and growing through failure. They also discuss Hozier's song, In the Woods Somewhere, and how it reflects the complicated relationship many Irish people have with their country. The hosts explore stereotypes of Irish identity, such as the drunkenness stereotype, and how they contribute to the construction of the Irish dream. Overall, they highlight the complexities and nuances of Irish identity in a global context. Hi everyone, and welcome back to today's episode of The Dream of Irish Identity. Today we'll be zooming into the transnational nature of Irish identity. This is Carly. This is Amanda. Hi, it's Natalie. And Raine. Back to what Carly was saying. We're going to be hitting on an interesting topic today, which is the comparability of the American dream to the Irish experience. We've been engaging with texts that put the American and Irish identities in close proximity with one another, and we started to examine the horrors and beauty of what it means to be Irish. All of our essays address parts of this. The horrors of Irish identity and how the ideal of Irish identity exists, but not without the horrors. I was engaging in another context about the American dream, and it made me wonder. The American dream is defined by one's ability to triumph over challenges. There is beauty in the triumph, and horror and sorrow in the challenges. And that's essentially what we've spent time talking about in our essays, so I wondered about the quote-unquote Irish dream. What does that look like, and how do stereotypes play into it? Well, Irish identity is built on both the horrors and triumphs of its people, and part of being human is growing and learning. Jimmy, in Joyce's After the Race, is a good example of this in Irish literature. He has to learn life lessons by failing in order to eventually succeed by experiencing character growth. So, how does Jimmy fail, and what does he learn? Well, it's interesting, because he wants to attain status, which is essentially what the American dream is too. Their dream is to achieve a sort of individuality and independence. Jimmy wants to create a good social status for himself with money. He decided to gamble, but kept losing round after round. Why didn't Jimmy just stop? Well, it's addictive, and he wanted that status so bad, he was willing to risk everything to get it, even though he knew he would regret it in the morning. Okay, so what happens next? Did he get the status he wanted? Well, no. It was a mistake to gamble with so much money, and because Jimmy gave in to the social pressure, he lost a lot of money. But Jimmy had previously shown how responsible he was. He had a respect for his father's shrewdness in business matters, and his father suggested Jimmy also invest money. Following his father's advice, Jimmy made more responsible financial decisions, which demonstrate the level of responsibility that the gambling doesn't. Oh, okay. So the gambling was a mistake, made because he was deemed peer pressure. He could have just stopped gambling and taken responsibility, but because he didn't, he learned about how to take responsibility for himself and his money in order to earn status that people will respect. He acknowledged his actions in the morning and demonstrated self-awareness. Right. So the Irish dream in this example is how Jimmy felt afraid of betting and gambling, but that growing and taking responsibility for his actions will turn his life into that life of status he wants, thus achieving a sense of ideal, the kind of Ireland he wants to live in, and the type of Irishness he wants to represent. That's fascinating, because while Jimmy faces the music, essentially, to learn what he wants to become, I looked at some pieces that tackled running away. What do you mean? Like, actually running from Ireland? In a way. I mean, identity is inescapable. It completes who you are and how you think of yourself. It's in your mannerisms, even. Identity, in a sense, chases you. This is especially true when you think about Irish history concerning England. Like we've been saying, an idyllic Ireland certainly can exist, but it's not without the problems and horrors of a country ravaged by centuries of colonialism, stacked along with individual problems that just everyone deals with. Oh, that is fascinating. So what texts were you engaging with that brought this up? So one of the pieces I followed was Hozier's song, In the Woods Somewhere, in which I set up some type of home that's been warped, thus meaning that nowhere is safe. Well, what's the home of the Hozier song, and what drew you to it? I'm not sure if everyone's familiar with the song, but In the Woods Somewhere is a rather dark one, lyric-wise and sound-wise, which I really enjoy. He's struggling with what is likely to be depression. He shows that lyrically by singing about how he's sick in bed, and then he goes out to the woods, sees and kills an injured fox, and is then chased by some unknown creature and runs away. That definitely sounds dark, but where's the sort of home that's warped like you mentioned earlier? In this context, the place that's twisted into a sort of mysterious and dangerous place is the woods, which tracks with Irish mythology. There's a danger lurking about, but in the end he finds something in the woods, and he decides to keep on living. Having a forest be the place where his mental battle goes down is telling about him and the complicated relationship that so many Irish people have with their country. Oh my gosh, that reminds me of what we're going to talk about in just a second. There's a juxtaposition between the beauties and the horrors of the naturalistic landscape that he describes in the poem. I'll go deeper into that soon, but I just thought that was interesting. Okay, slay, Carly. I have a question, though. Rain, in the case of the Hosier song, the mental battle is the sort of horror of being Irish then, and then the beauty is sort of finding that something that makes you want to persevere? Sort of. I believe it's about more personal, individual problems, and it's within the context of all that, as well as being Irish, that led to Hosier choosing how to present the song. The mystical woods, the odd creature in the dark, that aids the ominous, but still alluring sound that he's using. I love that. Rain, into the trees, with empty hands. All these pieces, After the Race and In the Woods Somewhere, work to provide an interesting definition of the Irish dream. There's the horrors involved with this identity, like paranoia and peer pressure and making terrible decisions, or mistakes, but also the beauty in finding out how to keep living and self-respect. I feel like those three pieces take a more realistic approach in depicting Irish identity, though, and we've engaged with material that also takes a more exaggerated look. In these pieces, the perception of the Irish people is that they're drunk and boisterous and funny, you know, just all living in this beautiful place, which are all stereotypes that creators play on in order to make statements about the Irish identity and the Irish dream. One of the biggest Irish stereotypes we've talked about this semester is the stereotypes of the Irish landscape. I definitely saw this in the eighth poem, The Stolen Child. I spoke in my paper about children being led away from Ireland, but in reality, I feel that Yeats was leading the child back to Ireland. Wait, tell us more about that. Well, I mean, I feel like with many of these mentions of the Irish landscape, especially within Yeats' poems, there's this connection to nationalism and the desire to express their place of origin in a good light, which I guess is a human thing to do. Just a simple Wikipedia post about Yeats describes him as an Irish traditionalist. This could reference his appreciation for Irish history or nostalgia, which would make sense, given how he expresses themes from his family in many of his poems. More specifically, within the first two lines of The Stolen Child, he says, quote, Where dips the rocky highland of sleuth wood in the lake, end quote. What do you think he meant by that? Sleuth wood in the lake? Well, I'm glad you asked that, actually. It was Yeats' family vacation point. He combines his past with the folklore of the area, such as the fairies many believe to be present there, to create a story about both himself and the sense of Irish escapism. Could the poem be referring to himself, then, returning to the safety of his childhood, or even warning his future self that the world is more full of weeping than he will ever be able to understand? So, what does that say about Irish stereotypes in particular? Well, this is where the human child is persuaded to go, to the secret places of Ireland. I wanted to focus on the child perspective with this and what it could say about escapism specifically. Does this relate to what you brought up earlier, related to the Hosea song? Oh, yeah. Thank you for reminding me. I mean, I guess it makes better sense if we see the story through a child's perspective, especially if we consider the juxtaposition between the beauty and horrors of nature. Maybe the child is easily persuaded to see the beauty in it rather than the more frightening elements. The beautiful pastoral landscape stereotype we come to understand can be true, but it is also plagued with more realistic elements that threaten its peace. This is a really interesting stereotype. What fascinates me about stereotypes is that they're born from some truth. Exaggerations are built on some foundation, and the foundation is reality. So, what I've been interested in is how the stereotype of drunk Irish people has been depicted across the different pieces we've engaged with. The one that stands out the most to me is The Quiet Man. What about that film stood out to you? Well, it wasn't until class discussion that I understood that it was meant to play on and exaggerate even further the Irish stereotypes that American viewers are familiar with related to Irish identity. The biggest one, or arguably the biggest one, is how all the Irish are drunk and go to pubs. But I felt that we could see a truth to that stereotype in the film even if it is exaggerated. The people in that movie all live in a small town where everyone knows everyone else's business. And anyone who has lived in a small town in the Midwest or anywhere knows that's an effect of living in a small town. Exactly. So, there's truth in that small town representation, which makes me think there's truth in the everyone being drunk thing. And, well, because they live in a small town before technology, the one meeting place for everyone to hang out is the pub. Recreational drinking makes hanging out with the same people day in and day out variable. So, the stereotype of drunk Irish people has to be born out of that truth of existence. I didn't think about it like that. It's like living in Iowa City and going to bars every Saturday after hanging out with the same people all week. So, even the exaggerated stereotypes play into defining Irish identity because there's a level of truth to the exaggerations, which means that this participates in crafting the Irish dream as well. So, what is the Irish dream in comparison to the American dream? We've been defining the Irish dream in conjunction with what we understand about the American dream stereotype. The Irish dream follows the same framework as the American dream, the challenges of being Irish tempered by the beauty and triumphs of being Irish. The Irish have their own challenges, which are defined by the effects of English colonialism like paranoia and by their specific lived experiences. Those lived experiences are ones like Jimmy's in After the Race, when he's pressured by his friends, or like Hozier's, where he has to bow as demons in the mythical woods in order to find out how to live again. And stereotypes help further understanding of the Irish experience. In the Yates poem, we understand more about the landscape of Ireland. In the poem, we see the more traditional elements emerge, which can add to Irish identity, but there are more realistic and frightening aspects that threaten the dream. And from The Quiet Man, we understand how the stereotype of drunkenness helps construct the truth of community and kinship among people who live in close quarters, in small towns or on an island. This type of close-knit community is certainly a triumph, as we are all stronger together when we have a community behind us to support and uplift us. This transnational lens helps us understand the complexities of Irish identity in a broader, global, and even more modern landscape. Thanks for joining us on this episode of The Dream of Irish Identity. We'll see you next time. Bye! The Dream of Irish Identity