The Last September

Lois Farquar is the niece of Sir Richard and Lady Naylor, the owners of the Danielstown Big House and its demesne (estate). Lois represents the Anglo Irish experience in Ireland and the uncertainty of modern women during the post-World War I period. Lois’s near-constant self-doubt reflects the uncertainty of the time (particularly modernist sentiments) and her position as part of a social class that existed between two warring sides. Additionally, her feelings of “playing at” being a woman and her desire to feel more like an adult reflect Ireland’s drawn-out transition period, before southern Ireland gained independence, enabling its growth as its own nation with full autonomy. The liminal state she occupies also mirrors the quality of her fractured identity as Irish and English. Lois, torn between her care for her lower-class neighbors and her high social position, cannot exist comfortably in either world, just as the Anglo Irish characters of the novel are not fully Irish or fully English. Lois’s inner conflict is not resolved in the novel, much like many modernist heroines and heroes. Gerald’s death clearly disturbs her, but she struggles to express or understand her grief.

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