Abstract
J.T. Farrell (1904–79) was a prominent Chicagoan author of Irish-American heritage. He is best known for his novels exploring Irish-American identity in postwar Chicago, most notably the Studs Lonigan trilogy (1932–35), comprising three novels: Young Lonigan (1932), The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934), and Judgement Day (1935).
This entry focuses on Farrell’s Studs Lonigan trilogy, its South Side Chicago setting, and how this relates to the formation of Irish-American identity within postwar America’s melting pot. By interrogating how the eponymous Studs’ Chicagoan neighborhood is presented as an urban environment in which different ethnic groups – Irish-American, African-American, and Jewish – harbor futile aspirations to distinguish themselves as distant from one another and therefore closer to an American mainstream defined by whiteness, the entry explores the Irish-American identity crisis resulting from these tensions during the period. Beginning with some background on Irish-American identity, the entry argues that Farrell’s trilogy exposes the fallacious nature of the American Dream when read in the context of ethnic competition and identity formation in 1930s South Side Chicago.
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Heeney, J. (2021). Chicago and the Irish-American Identity Crisis in J.T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan Trilogy (1932–1935). In: Tambling, J. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_318-1
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Latest
Trilogy (1932–1935)- Published:
- 31 March 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_318-2
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Trilogy (1932–1935)- Published:
- 26 November 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62592-8_318-1