“A splendid figure of revolting womanhood”: The Women of Brendan Behan’s Short Fiction

Abstract

: Following Patricia Coughlan’s prompt to question representations of women in the writing of male authors, this article sets out to analyse the representations of women in the work of Brendan Behan, more specifically his short fiction. As a working-class writer, the issue of the portrayal of his own neighbourhood and community quickly emerged as a central concern for Behan. As Michael Pierse has argued, within the oppressed group of the Dublin working class, it was women who were most at odds with the status-quo, suffering double marginalisation through both gender and class. When looking at Behan’s depictions of women in his short stories, no straightforward conclusions may be drawn. Behan can hardly be classified as a feminist writer, but he treats most of his female characters with similar empathy as he does his male characters, allowing them the capacity to be anything from self-denying saints to “screwy bitches.” Some of his stories are written in homage to the women who raised him, others seem to criticise a society that victimises them.