Allusions/references To Other Works
Amongst Women refashions characters, themes and situations from The Barracks and The Dark, McGahern's first two novels. For example, Moran resembles the character Mahoney in The Dark and Reegan, the bitter IRA veteran in The Barracks.
McGahern's autobiography Memoir (2005) makes clear the influence of his early life on his work. His much-loved mother Susan died when he was a child, leaving McGahern and his siblings in the care of his father — a former IRA member — who was an authoritarian and self-absorbed Garda (policeman). His complicated character bears a large resemblance to Moran.
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“My plan of instruction is extremely simple and limited. They learn, on week-days, such coarse works as may fit them for servants. I allow of no writing for the poor. My object is not to make fanatics, but to train up the lower classes in habits of industry and piety.”
—Hannah More (1745–1833)