Hero or Traitor? A Linguistic Analysis of the Literary Representation of Roger Casement in Sabina Murray’s "Valiant Gentlemen"

More than one hundred years after his death, the life of the controversial Irish nationalist and British consular official Roger Casement is still of great interest to historians and novelists alike. In this paper I explore the discursive representation of Roger Casement in Sabina Murray’s Valiant...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Miriam Patricia Germani
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Firenze University Press 2021-06-01
Series:Studi Irlandesi : a Journal of Irish Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis/article/view/12874
Description
Summary:More than one hundred years after his death, the life of the controversial Irish nationalist and British consular official Roger Casement is still of great interest to historians and novelists alike. In this paper I explore the discursive representation of Roger Casement in Sabina Murray’s Valiant Gentlemen (2016). In the light of theories on trauma and memory (Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, Levy 2011) I analyse the character’s development in relation to his experiences in the Congo and the Amazon. From a critical linguistic perspective (Fowler 1996) combined with the system of Appraisal within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin, White 2005), I analyse the construction of this character’s identity in the process of his transformation from a loyal British subject to an Irish revolutionary.
ISSN:2239-3978