Sexuality, Marriage and Women’s Life Narratives in Teresa Deevy’s: A Disciple (1931), The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935) and Katie Roche (1936)

Abstract

Teresa Deevy (1894-1963) is an Irish playwright who has received increased critical attention in recent years. Deevy wrote some twenty-five plays between 1930 and 1958, and she can be positioned within the post-revolutionary trend of disillusionment articulated by Irish writers such as Frank O’Connor and Liam O’Flaherty. However, Deevy’s work deviates from these writers with her striking emphasis on women’s oppression within Irish society. This essay examines three of Deevy’s plays: A Disciple (1931), The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935) and Katie Roche (1936). These plays were challenging at a time when the state was rolling back on much of the emancipatory promise of the revolutionary period and when successive Pastoral Letters castigated the immodest behaviour of young Irish women. Of particular interest and note are Deevy’s stage directions, her use of naturalism and her representations of female sexuality. Through her plays, Teresa Deevy was highlighting the shadow side of state nationalism’s rural idylls and Arcadian visions.