Violence and ontological doubt in "The stoat"
This paper first considers textual variations of John McGahern’s short story “The Stoat” from its original publication in Getting Through to the revised version in Collected Stories. Then, by focusing on a repeated passage on a rabbit and a stoat, the author reads their story as a narrative of dislo...
Wedi'i Gadw mewn:
| Cyhoeddwyd yn: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Prif Awdur: | |
| Fformat: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
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Journal of the Short Story in English
2010
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| Mynediad Ar-lein: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Crynodeb: | This paper first considers textual variations of John McGahern’s short story “The Stoat” from its original publication in Getting Through to the revised version in Collected Stories. Then, by focusing on a repeated passage on a rabbit and a stoat, the author reads their story as a narrative of dislocation and doubt. The narrator attempts to make sense of his relationships with others (mostly his father) and his place in the world through an allegorical animal tale. The inadequacy of that imaginative allegory to provide an understanding of the world is due not only to the narrator’s youth and inexperience, but also to the violence in the allegorical narrative. The world of violence cannot be made completely whole. |
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