This week’s reading was a mixture of sadness, unfortunate events, and powerfulness. The Gathering is a book that I remember looking at two years ago while browsing for books at my local library, and it’s so strange that I came across it again in this class. I thought that the options we had to write about for this blog were interesting, and I thought that for this week I would do some historical research (since I never choose that option) and see what I could find that pertains to this story.
I decided to look up Celtic Tiger and found that Celtic Tiger is actually a term that describes a time of supreme growth economically, which occurred between 1995 and 2007 in Ireland. When I read this it mildly shocked me that this was quite recent---more recent than I had predicted. We have been studying novels and excerpts from texts that date back, well, further than two years ago and so it was a nice surprise to know that I have been alive during this time when this occurred! One other interesting thing I found was the real meaning behind the term Celtic Tiger. The term stemmed from the supreme growth of tigers in East Asia from the late 80’s to early 90’s. This represented the same growth but with economical facets in Ireland. I’m not a big economics fanatic nor do I fully understand the topic but I know that the economy always has a cycle, and once you reach the top, the next step is to decline (like we are in right now) and Ireland did that in 2009. Recently this past February, a report commented that the money in Ireland wasn’t invested intelligently or efficiently, and now they are worse off than they were before the boom. Now other countries (seeing Ireland’s mistake and having all the potential Ireland had before the Celtic Tiger) claim that they are capable of creating the same sort of Celtic Tiger phenomenon, except by removing the name Tiger and putting another type of big cat or animal in its place (like Scotland using the term Lion.)
The aftermath of this situation looks grim. Exclusive people have been describing the outlook of Ireland’s economic situation as poor, bleak, and dire. However, they are at least not the only country in the world experiencing this sort of economic downfall and turmoil. When the economy does it’s cycle, the whole world is involved and things eventually take their place and resume once again. However, with the growing world and development of stronger countries, who knows WHEN that will be.
In relation to material items and the value of things, the Celtic Tiger really was a big change for Ireland’s possession of wealth. In the stories we have read in class, almost all of the characters were far from being well-off. But what’s interesting about the stories is that most of the characters (at least the main characters) preferred non-materialistic things over materialistic things. For example, in Carmilla, all that Carmilla desired was Laura. And the people of Ireland endured tough hardships like the plague and the Irish potato famine, but still found beauty and pride in their country. In Dorian Gray, the desire wasn’t material, it was to be forever youthful, or to preserve his age. In Portrait of the Artist, the main goal was finding oneself, not having all the riches in the world or anything like that. And finally in Breakfast, all Pussy really longed for was a family and a sense of belonging (although a cute pair of shoes wouldn’t hurt!) For Veronica in The Gathering, her main goal was just finding out the reason of things---finding out what drove her brother to kill himself, and uncovering the rest of her family’s secrets. It just goes to show that although Ireland wasn’t a wealthy country, through its stories you can find solace in non-materialistic things, and you don’t need those things in order to be happy, and I think this message is subliminally or maybe intentionally brought out in many of the novels we have read so far this semester.
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I enjoyed reading your analysis about Celtic Tiger. I had never heard that term before but it is very interesting to learn. I absolutely loved the last part of your blog, when you discuss each of the novels we have read this semester. You said that in each of the novels we have read, the characters tended to desire non-materialistic things.
ReplyDelete“But what’s interesting about the stories is that most of the characters (at least the main characters) preferred non-materialistic things over materialistic things. For example, in Carmilla, all that Carmilla desired was Laura. And the people of Ireland endured tough hardships like the plague and the Irish potato famine, but still found beauty and pride in their country. In Dorian Gray, the desire wasn’t material, it was to be forever youthful, or to preserve his age. In Portrait of the Artist, the main goal was finding oneself, not having all the riches in the world or anything like that. And finally in Breakfast, all Pussy really longed for was a family and a sense of belonging (although a cute pair of shoes wouldn’t hurt!) For Veronica in The Gathering, her main goal was just finding out the reason of things---finding out what drove her brother to kill himself, and uncovering the rest of her family’s secrets. It just goes to show that although Ireland wasn’t a wealthy country, through its stories you can find solace in non-materialistic things.”
I love that you made this comparison and discovered this connection between each novel! And if you consider the Portrait of Dorian Gray, Dorian does want material things, he actually obsesses over them, but he still doesn’t feel fully satisfied because the thing he desires most of all is youth. I totally did not make this connection at all. Kudos for your critical thinking!
Hey Lucky,
ReplyDeleteI found your research on the Celtic Tiger to be very interesting. I have to agree with you that it is a little shocking to find that the time span of Celtic Tiger was so recent and that we were actually alive when this was happening. Dealing with Irish literature it seems that the issues usually present throughout the works go back to some long ago conflicts in Irish history that still has an impact today. It is kind of refreshing to find that one of the issues referred to in the novel was as recent as three years ago.
My excitement in Celtic Tiger being so recent just dropped upon discovering that it is related to economics, which I might add, is not my strong suit. “Exclusive people have been describing the outlook of Ireland’s economic situation as poor, bleak, and dire.” While it is sad that Ireland is suffering so much economically as of late I cannot feel to bad for them considering the fact that pretty much everyone’s economic situation is looking ‘poor, bleak, and dire’ in today’s economy.
I found your discussion of material things to be very interesting. I loved how you related it back to all of the other novels that we have read this semester. It is surprising to find how similar Irish novels are when comparing them to the issues that they present in their storylines and how it is all linked back to the way of life in Ireland. I also found your analysis of Veronica to be completely accurate. I remember a couple parts in the novel when Veronica appeared unsettled by her financial security, probably because of Liam’s poverty.
All in all I found your analysis of the reading to be very interesting, and economics aside, your blog was very enjoyable.
Lucky,
ReplyDeleteGreat topic…I’m getting my masters in business so I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to this kind of thing and I love it. Actually when I went to Ireland last year as part of a study abroad trip, a large portion of our time was spent discussing Ireland’s economy and the effects of the “Celtic Tiger” economy. Interestingly, Ireland’s economy was, and probably to some extent still is, made up of 3 sectors with industries in each one. The primary sector is primarily agricultural, the secondary sector had been textile but more recently included high end technologies and the tertiary sector combined with the secondary sector were the real drivers for the “Celtic Tiger Boom”. The tertiary sector was mostly made up of financial, legal, and retail industries. A huge reason that Ireland had such a boom was due to their government’s efforts to make Ireland an “internationally friendly” place to do business. Meaning that they offered great tax rates (very low) and provided a ton of support for these businesses to come and set up shop in Ireland. Ireland’s economy was essentially made up of almost all exported goods that weren’t even from native Irish companies. Many US companies opted to make Dublin and Ireland in general their headquarters or at least have major factories there because of the economic advantages, especially the tax breaks; big companies like Dell, IBM, Intel, Medtronic, and GlaxoSmithKline all moved operations to Ireland.
So enough of my “geekery”, I really like the idea you brought up when you stated,
“In relation to material items and the value of things, the Celtic Tiger really was a big change for Ireland’s possession of wealth. In the stories we have read in class, almost all of the characters were far from being well-off. But what’s interesting about the stories is that most of the characters (at least the main characters) preferred non-materialistic things over materialistic things.”
The change to having wealth was a definite issue for many people in Ireland, especially the younger generations. We had been told that it has created some major problems for the country because of the “expectations” of being able to live the good life. Many, many people have either moved to the big city of Dublin or moved out of the country all together in search of more money and better jobs. Immigration to Dublin of foreign born people has also had an effect on the economy because these “migrants” are willing to work in the factories for less money…an interesting theme that I think we can see is not unique to this country.
Ok enough ranting from me…thanks for the great post topic!!
One of my favorite moments in The Gathering happens on page 189 where Veronic goes into a store realizes that "there is nothing here [she] cannot buy." She begins to frantically collect storage jars envisioning some sort of apocalyptic future:
ReplyDelete"I start piling them into the crook of my left arm, crying a little more now, as I imagine the flood, plague, and nuclear bomb that has us locked in the house eating five-year-old polenta. If anyone asks me, I can tell them that I am crying for the end of the world. And suddenly I want to throw the nine Brabantia storage jars into the air and shout, or go over to the till and empty my bag on the counter, and say, *What about the starving people in Africa, with their bellies out and their eyes running with pus?* because I can buy anything at all in this shop. My brother has just died and I can buy anything in this shop."
I see this passage as Veronica being haunted by the "ghosts" of the Irish Famine. She wants to make up for her personal shortcomings by storing food for some terrible future calamity, but her greediness in this scene is juxtaposed with images of "starving children in Africa," which to me is connected with the "starving children of Ireland" of only a few generations ago. It's as if she cannot be comfortable with her own class status and in spite of all her afluence, she possesses an incredible amount of class guilt. Until the 1990s, the idea of being "wealthy" in Ireland just simply didn't really exist for the most of its citizens. One primary aspect of modernization is that it is always looking forward while rejecting the "primitiveness" embedded in the past. What we see in this section is the "ghost" of Liam, a character that I would assert is the "ghost" of Ireland's sordid past--its suffering, its poverty, its victimization--returning to confront Veronica with her empty materialism. As Veronica states, "My emigrant brother makes an old-fashioned ghost" (191), and I think Liam's presence is there to remind Veronica that everything in Celtic Tiger Ireland is NOT okay and that there are things in the past that must be reckoned with.