Becoming a legend: Edna O'Brien and her life-long journey

Abstract

The publication of Germaine Greer's The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause presents a manifesto for women's emancipation and their imminent embarkment on the avenue of freedom towards the liberation from the male gaze. In a similar vein, Edna O'Brien, a pioneer of the literary treatment of female agency and sexuality in the Irish literary canon, moves past the age when women enjoy visibility. Age liberates O'Brien from her entrapment in the public persona and her anxious relationship with the public opinion. It has the power to enhance the possibility of women's difference. Nowadays, the commitment to women's cause, the inherent element of O'Brien's narratives, continues to mark out the uncompromising discourse of transgression of the standard as well as her vigilant condemnation of violence against women. In time, O'Brien has become both a foremother author and a legend. She has embraced her unrepressed femininity and the personification of a female sage that Irish women writers have long lacked and may thus represent a role model for authors who wish to transgress the discriminatory standards and defend the female voice.