The Island's gift

The Island's gift

Literature--Twentieth Century--Sean O'Faolain--Lough Derg

Jenny awakes to feel the gift of Station Island: a sense of equality in bodily experience

Sean O'Faolain, 1900-1991

The Lovers of the Lake', in The Collected Stories of Sean O'Faolain, Vol. 2, pp. 18-43, here p. 35

Constable and Company, London

1981

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Edited edition

English

Collection of short stories

DD_0242

54.608369,-7.871702

“[Jenny] awoke refreshed and unburthened. She had received the island’s gift: its sense of remoteness from the world, almost a sensation of the world’s death. It is the source of the island’s kindness. Nobody is just matter, poor to be exploited by rich, weak to be exploited by the strong; in mutual generosity each recognizes the other only as a form of soul; it is a brief, harsh Utopia of equality in nakedness. The bare feet are a symbol of that nakedness unknown in the world they have left.”

Short stories