The Barracks (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: John McGahern
- First Published: 1963
- Type of Work: Psychological and social realism
- Time of Work: The late 1940’s
- Setting: The west of Ireland, Dublin, and London
- Principal Characters: Elizabeth Reegan, Sergeant Reegan, Willie, Una, Sheila, Ned Casey, Jim Brennan, John Mullins, Superintendent John James Quirke
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Children, Family or family life, Self-discovery, Love or romance, Rural or country life, Doctors, Cancer, Adultery, Death or dying, London, Ireland or Irish people, Joy or sorrow, Tumors
- Locales: London, England, Dublin, Ireland
The Novel
The Barracks is the story, generally told by an omniscient narrator, of Elizabeth Reegan’s last fifteen months of life. Home again in the west of Ireland, on convalescent leave from the hospital where she was a nurse and from the war-torn city of the London of the late 1940’s, she has been married for four years to the sergeant in her local village police station. Sergeant Reegan is a taciturn widower with three children. The opening pages of the novel, which describe their ritual of lighting the oil lamp and drawing the blinds against the growing darkness,...
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