Benjamin Black, John Banville, Quirke, and the Ireland of Their Time

Abstract

The essay first traces the development of the detective novel in Ireland, then briefly focuses on the dichotomy Banville/Black, to finally analyse the detective novels by Benjamin Black with pathologist Quirke as the protagonist. They are set in the gloomy Dublin atmosphere of the 1950s, a decade pervaded by the sense of oppression characteristic of the moralistic society of the time. Quirke is the product of institutions of containment disseminated all over Ireland and in tune with the nationalistic narrative of the young country; grown up in an orphanage, he experienced their crippling force. Through the dissection of corpses on the autoptic table and the discoveries in his investigations, Quirke is faced with both the ghosts from his own past and the authorities of contemporary society.