4 Class and multiplicity in One by One in the Darkness
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Brian Cliff
Abstract
This chapter examines Deirdre Madden’s One by One in the Darkness (1996), arguing that two central features of her novel are its depiction of class and its narrative emphasis on the multiple effects that ripple outward from any given event. By exploring a variety of class experiences within the Quinn family, One by One shifts away from the language of ‘the two communities’, reaching instead towards a more nuanced multiplicity. The novel also depicts that multiplicity by emphasising the many ripples that single events leave behind, often withholding a key happening in favour of the bruised silences that follow in its wake. One by One in the Darkness thus reflects a larger pattern in Madden’s work: rather than just books in which things happen, hers are often books in which things have happened. This gives her fiction the quality less of revelation than of meditation, and helps One by One avoid the most clichéd modes of representing the Troubles. As comparisons to some of Madden’s contemporaries suggest, this quality has a significant resonance in the context of Northern Irish fiction.
Abstract
This chapter examines Deirdre Madden’s One by One in the Darkness (1996), arguing that two central features of her novel are its depiction of class and its narrative emphasis on the multiple effects that ripple outward from any given event. By exploring a variety of class experiences within the Quinn family, One by One shifts away from the language of ‘the two communities’, reaching instead towards a more nuanced multiplicity. The novel also depicts that multiplicity by emphasising the many ripples that single events leave behind, often withholding a key happening in favour of the bruised silences that follow in its wake. One by One in the Darkness thus reflects a larger pattern in Madden’s work: rather than just books in which things happen, hers are often books in which things have happened. This gives her fiction the quality less of revelation than of meditation, and helps One by One avoid the most clichéd modes of representing the Troubles. As comparisons to some of Madden’s contemporaries suggest, this quality has a significant resonance in the context of Northern Irish fiction.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Preface xiii
- Acknowledgements xv
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Memory, trauma, and the Troubles
- 1 ‘Images … at the absolute edge of memory’ 17
- 2 ‘The horror of little details’ 32
- 3 Journeying through loss 50
- 4 Class and multiplicity in One by One in the Darkness 66
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Part II: Art and objects
- 5 Objects in Deirdre Madden’s artist novels 83
- 6 Ageing and identity in Deirdre Madden’s Authenticity 102
- 7 Sensing one’s way forward 116
- 8 ‘What can we do, what does art do?’ 131
- 9 Looking at animals and objects in Deirdre Madden’s children’s books and some adult fiction 147
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Part III: Home and place
- 10 Nothing is Black 165
- 11 Imaginaries of home in Deirdre Madden’s fiction 180
- 12 The architectural uncanny 199
- 13 Living lives 215
- 14 In conversation with Deirdre Madden 231
- Bibliography 244
- Index 258
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Preface xiii
- Acknowledgements xv
- Introduction 1
-
Part I: Memory, trauma, and the Troubles
- 1 ‘Images … at the absolute edge of memory’ 17
- 2 ‘The horror of little details’ 32
- 3 Journeying through loss 50
- 4 Class and multiplicity in One by One in the Darkness 66
-
Part II: Art and objects
- 5 Objects in Deirdre Madden’s artist novels 83
- 6 Ageing and identity in Deirdre Madden’s Authenticity 102
- 7 Sensing one’s way forward 116
- 8 ‘What can we do, what does art do?’ 131
- 9 Looking at animals and objects in Deirdre Madden’s children’s books and some adult fiction 147
-
Part III: Home and place
- 10 Nothing is Black 165
- 11 Imaginaries of home in Deirdre Madden’s fiction 180
- 12 The architectural uncanny 199
- 13 Living lives 215
- 14 In conversation with Deirdre Madden 231
- Bibliography 244
- Index 258
