The Essence of the Age of Enlightenment in Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin

Abstract

This paper aims at analysing Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin, written in 2000. This novel, set in mid-eighteenth century England, projects a girl who in no time is pushed into the category of a ‘fallen woman’ for violating the prescribed patriarchal norms and roles for women. Here the girl, Mary, is represented as a universal subject who lives in wretched condition. The scope of reclamation is dealt to facilitate lost selfhood in general and of women victims in particular. Its objective is to asseverate the wholeness of one’s identity.  Reclamation is synonymous to the redefinition of womanhood and selfhood. The victory of assertion can be felicitously traced when Mary redefines the term prostitute by combating the patriarchal society of the Enlightenment that makes her a peripheral character.