Architectures of exile: confinement, insularity, and escape in William Trevor's Felicia's journey

Abstract

Drawing on readings of ‘home’ in cultural and literary criticism, as well as on historical and social scientific analyses of the experiences of Irish women in England, this article will examine how William Trevor's novel, Felicia's journey, uses space to explore the marginalisation of the Irish woman within Irish and English society. It will begin by examining the ways in which domestic interiors complement the narrative of entrapment and escape central to the novel, before going on to look at how Trevor engages with the social and cultural conditions that circumscribed the lives of Irish women in the second half of the twentieth century. Finally, it will examine how Trevor's representation of the Irish emigrant experience foregrounds the historical dilemmas encountered by Irish women in England, specifically in the context of the ‘abortion trail’ of the 1980s and 1990s and in relation to how Irish women have been imagined in English culture.