“Discuss the significance of nationalism for contemporary literature with reference to Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark."

“Discuss the significance of nationalism for contemporary literature”

Seamus Deane’s novel “Reading in the Dark” centres around a catholic family in post-war Northern Ireland. The family are haunted by secrets and their story is told through the eyes of one of their young sons. The issue of nationalism features prominently throughout the novel and the political and religious conflict hangs over the whole community. I will discuss whether Deane writes with a deliberate nationalist agenda and assess the significance of nationalism, in this case the want of the main characters to live in an independent Ireland free of British rule, and the effect this has on the novel. I will also look at how, through the characters in the novel, Deane dissects the Irish national character and traces the development of nationalist attitudes.

Early in the first chapter of the novel the narrator recalls a conversation from his childhood which immediately aligns the family as nationalist...