"The road away becomes the road back": prodigal sons in the short stories of John McGahern
This article is an analysis of John McGahern’s short fiction as a retelling of the parable of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke. The case is made that the entire body of short fiction forms one connected work and that the journey of the central protagonist forms a circular route away from and t...
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| Vydáno v: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse, |
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| Médium: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
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Journal of the Short Story in English
2010
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| On-line přístup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Shrnutí: | This article is an analysis of John McGahern’s short fiction as a retelling of the parable of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke. The case is made that the entire body of short fiction forms one connected work and that the journey of the central protagonist forms a circular route away from and than back to the ancestral home. The archetypal implications of the journey fraught with indecision are deepened when analyzed in terms of the parable. I take into consideration the four volumes of short stories published during McGahern’s life – Nightlines, Getting Through, High Ground, and The Collected Stories – and conclude with an extended discussion of his posthumous collection, Creatures of the Earth, and the effect it has on our understanding of his work |
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