Telling it like it is (and isn't) : recreating the self in Brendan Behan's Borstal boy

Title: Telling it like it is (and isn't) : recreating the self in Brendan Behan's Borstal boy
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2011, vol. 37, iss. 2, pp. [173]-184
Extent
[173]-184
  • ISSN
    0524-6881 (print)
    1805-0867 (online)
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
This paper argues that, in Borstal Boy, Brendan Behan uses the form of the Irish prison memoir to deconstruct the political orthodoxies and sexual attitudes both of English colonialism and Irish nationalism and to replace them with a vision far more complex, hyphenated and tolerant. Although the work is based on Behan's experience as a young teenager sent to England on an I.R.A. bombing mission, then arrested and incarcerated in an English prison, Behan is not overly concerned with autobiographical authenticity. He uses his prison experience ironically to dramatize a microcosm in many ways freer and more loving than the nominally free world beyond its boundaries. In essence Behan uses the autobiographical subject as a social text that valorizes the solidarity of "we."
References
[1] Behan, Brendan (1982) Borstal Boy. Boston: Godine.

[2] Brannigan, John (2002) Brendan Behan. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

[3] Clarke, Thomas (1922) Glimpses of an Irish Felon's Life. Dublin and London: Maunsel & Roberts.

[4] Davitt, Michael (1885) Leaves from a Prison Diary. London: Chapman & Hall.

[5] Devoy, John (1929) Recollections of an Irish Rebel. New York: Chas P. Young.

[6] Harris, Frank (1916) The Life of Oscar Wilde. New York: Privately printed for the Author.

[7] Harris, Frank (1922) My Life and Loves. Paris: Privately printed for the Author.

[8] Hogan, Patrick Colm (1999) 'Brendan Behan on the Politics of Identity: Nation, Culture, Class, and Human Empathy in Borstal Boy'. Colby Quarterly 35(1), 154–172.

[9] Kearney, Colbert (1979) 'Borstal Boy: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Prisoner'. In: Mikhail, E. H. (ed.) The Art of Brendan Behan. New York: Barnes. 109–122.

[10] Mitchel, John (1854) Jail Journal. New York: The Office of the 'Citizen'.

[11] O'Donovan Rossa, Jeremiah (1974) O'Donovan Rossa's Prison Life: Six Years in Six English Prisons. New York: P. J. Kennedy.

[12] Phelps, Corey (1979) 'Borstal Revisited'. In: Mikhail, E. H. (ed.) The Art of Brendan Behan. New York: Barnes. 91–108.

[13] Schrank, Bernice (1992) 'Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy as Ironic Pastoral'. The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 18(2), 68–74. | DOI 10.2307/25512929