The Lingering and “The Dead”: Illusion and Irony in Early Twentieth-Century Irish Fiction

In the immediate post-Famine period, individual cases of tuberculosis begin to appear in Irish fiction. Until Dr Noel Browne’s successful crusade against the disease in the 1940s, it continued to be a fearsome killer, typically described in starkly realistic terms. In this chapter focusing on early twentieth-century fiction I interrogate Joyce’s multifaceted representation of the disease in “The Dead,” George Moore’s “A Waitress,” and Dorothy Macardle’s skewering of the idealized Romantic images of the consumptive girl in her short piece “The Portrait of Roisin Dhu.” In Romantic imaginings of tuberculosis and its victims, the disease carries a double valency. It appears as itself, but more importantly, it functions as signifier of character and meaning. While Romantic constructions of tuberculosis appear in these three stories, they remain true to the spirit of Irish literary realism. It is the characters who erroneously attribute meaning to the disease. Characters who engage in Romantic imaginings are undermined by their creators, who deploy merciless irony to bring the reader back to earth. Joyce, Moore, and Macardle make it their business to deflate Romantic notions about tuberculosis and its sufferers. All three writers offer a stark contrast between such illusions and the reality of this ghastly disease.