Transgressing Male Centered Views in Claire Keegan's Small Things like These (2022

Abstract

Modes of transgression became a point of interest to multiple academic studies. It appears to be the target of number of research works in the field of literary criticism. Claire Keegan stress on the inquiry of women’s self-realization to transgress male centered views. The present study is an attempt to examine, using gender theories and Feminist perspectives, the need to transgressing man’s habit in Claire Keegan’s Small Things like these. A Feminist Theory is used to deal with the writers views on the suffering of women. Gender theories: two theories suggested (gender as a social construction and Judith Butler’s gender performativity) to deal with how the feeling of support towards women crops up in man’s logic. The researcher also uses these two theories to disassemble the main character Bill Furlong and his struggle to achieve his support for women in order to chart a new path for her, despite the patriarchal norms imposed on him through transgressing man’s habit of thought. Results show that Bill Furlong’s support to women right is determined by a challenging journey of self-realization