Shifting Identities: The Influence of Sex and Religion on Irish American Women Autobiographers

Abstract

Shifting Identities: The Influence of Sex and Religion on Irish American Women Autobiographers Sally Barr Ebest (bio) Any research on Irish American identity begins with Charles Fanning. His seminal study The Irish Voice in America (1990/2000) not only detailed the characteristics of Irish American literature—an emphasis on family, community, religion, nationalism, and politics—but also argued that these traits endure. In the ensuing years, however, questions have risen about this endurance of Irish American traits. In a 2003 study of six Irish American novelists, Shaun O’Connell notes that “nationality, language and religion no longer clearly determine identity in a world of instant communication, easy mobility and cultural internationalism.”1 Jennifer McClinton-Temple’s 2013 examination of three recent Irish American autobiographies exemplifies how these traits have changed, adding feelings of paralysis and insularity to the definition. Similarly, in Irish-American Autobiography (2016), James Rogers suggests that identity includes a growing interiority expressed in a sense of difference, feelings of abandonment, spiritual homelessness, silence, or secrets, often—but not always—due to the impact of the Catholic Church. Autobiography is the perfect medium to trace these shifting identities. In Reading Autobiography, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson maintain that the genre creates multiple selves as a result of self-reflection throughout the composing process. Rather than presenting a static or universal persona, autobiography becomes an amalgamation as authors shape their identity out of shapeless subjectivity. Consequently, life writing may be viewed as both cultural and literary artifact since it represents society and the self. Autobiography defies generic definitions, because there are at least 64 different types.2 One type of life writing, the serial autobiography, is usually published as chapters or volumes focusing on different periods of the author’s life; however, because life stories tend to span decades or eras, they may be revised (as Mary McCarthy did) based on additional information or self-reflection.3 They may be written in first, second, or third person. Mary Karr and Mary Cantwell generally write in the first person; however, they shift to the second person when discussing sex. Depending on their age or subject matter, the authors may change voices or points of view.4 McCarthy is the naïf in Memories of a Catholic Girlhood but a cynic in Intellectual Memoirs; Mary Karr is a foul-mouthed [End Page 169] adolescent in The Liars’ Club but an older and wiser mother in Lit. Between Just Kids and The M Train, Patti Smith morphs from itinerate artist to widow, yet remains a poet. Autobiography opens up space for creative as well as political explorations;5 as a result, this genre is the ideal site for marginalized groups such as women and ethnic minorities. For Irish American women—often marginalized by a patriarchal church and society—such work has been empowering. Like their Irish foremothers, these women have used life narratives not only to establish their identity but also to place it within the context of their changing socio-religious culture.6 This is particularly true for serial autobiographers. Mary McCarthy (b. 1912), Mary Cantwell (b. 1930), Patti Smith (b. 1946), and Mary Karr (b. 1955) composed multiple volumes of bildungsromane tracing different stages of their personal development. Their plots include “escape from a repressive family, schooling, and a journey into the wide world of urban life with a series of mentors, romantic involvements, and entrepreneurial ventures,” which for some women culminate in an unhappy awareness of “gender-based limitations.”7 By writing memoirs covering multiple decades, these authors illustrate how identity has shifted from external to internal markers; rather than explore family, community, religion, nationalism, or politics per se, they discuss their sense of paralysis, insularity, and difference as well as feelings of abandonment and spiritual homelessness. In every case, sex is the common denominator, the nexus in a Venn diagram conjoining family and religion. This connection is most evident in second memoirs recounting the authors’ middle years, which focus on sex and erotic pleasure, issues previously excluded from accounts of Catholic girls’ lives. By addressing such topics, these writers reveal the Church’s view of extramarital sex as illness or disease and of women as sexualized, inferior beings...