Making of Scapegoats: The Complicity of Church, State and Society in Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These

Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These (2021) brings such notions as purity, impurity and scapegoating into discussion within the context of the convent laundries in Ireland. The novel critiques the reduction of morality and immorality to a sexist category and focuses on the “fallen women” as both victims and saviours of society. It also portrays the harsh socio-economic environment of New Ross, Ireland where capitalism and inequality prevail, and the characters are victims of the capitalist system. Drawing a sketch of the Magdalen Laundries, which served as institutions instrumental in creating ideal women for the Irish nation and protecting the public from the “fallen” women until 1996, Keegan points at the complicity between religious and capitalist influences. She emphasises the relationship between Christianity and capitalism by implying out that capitalism prioritises private ownership, profit and competition, and that Christianity propagates the core tenets of the system. The narrative underscores how capitalism’s pursuit of profit can lead to the exploitation and marginalization of vulnerable groups, perpetuating a system of scapegoating to protect the interests of the rich and the powerful. Hence, the primary objective of this study is to analyse the phenomenon of scapegoating as exemplified, particularly by the girls at the convent who have been marginalized and confined within a convent in Keegan’s literary work, Small Things Like These, drawing upon the theories related to “mimetic desire,” “violence,” and “scapegoating mechanism.” It also aims to show how these girls, ostracised and accused of subverting national ideals, function as a mirror to the truth and reveal the unfeasibility of achieving true communal purification within the intricate interplay of church, state, and society– all of which are manipulated by the forces of capitalism.