Suffragists, new woman and nationalists: representations of female identity in the novels of Rosamond Jacob

Writer and activist Rosamond Jacob (1888-1960) contributed valuable works to Ireland’s literary tradition and her novels map the changes in Irish society during the period in which they were written. As a political activist, Jacob challenged the authority of the State and church to dominate women’s lives and her novels reflect the resistance to conform to dominant ideals of womanhood. This thesis will examine the representations of female identity in Jacob’s novels and will focus on the novels Callaghan (1920), The Troubled House (1938), The Rebel’s Wife (1957) and her unpublished novella Theo and Nix (1924). In the novel Callaghan, I will focus on the interplay between suffragetism and nationalism and propose that Jacob considers these two ideologies as indivisible entities. I will consider the representation of motherhood and New Woman in The Troubled House and the complexities of their relationship within their social context. I will also consider the unpublished novella Theo and Nix and the space for the subaltern within the cultural sphere. Jacob’s most successful novel The Rebel’s Wife has received little critical research and I hope to redress that by examining how Jacob contested a space for an important woman in history and debated the need for contemporary Ireland to remember the contribution of women to Irish history. In conclusion, my thesis will show how Jacob introduced themes of nationalism, religion, gender and culture into her novels and how she intervenes in their debates. By doing so, I aim to add to the canon of critical work which exists on Jacob’s work to date and enhance our understanding of an important Irish feminist writer of the first part of the twentieth century.