Houses That Remember: Readings of The Troubles in Edna O’Brien’s Fiction

Abstract

This essay examines how the Irish writer  Edna O'Brien represents the Irish conflict known as The Troubles in her fiction, specifically in the novelThe House of Splendid Isolation (1994) and in  the short  story "Black Flower",  published in the collection  Saints  and Sinners  (2011). By choosing this  topic, I wish to  understand if this  theme  represents a departure  of  her early narratives, as stated by some of her critics,or if it can be read in the general framework of her oeuvre.