‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall’: Female Subjective Dialectics in the Work of Paul Howard, Louise O’Neill and Naoise Dolan

This essay will examine how the three authors Paul Howard, Louise O’Neill and Naoise Dolan see gaze, male as constitutive of subjectivity identity in a twenty-first-century Irish context. It uses theoretical matrix that combines work Jacques Lacan, Laura Mulvey range contemporary feminist perspectives to critique hermeneutics concept image. In Howard’s work, Ross, central character, reifies commodifies women according they look, being with woman who is beautiful he validates his own quite insecure masculinity; gaze commodification power. Asking for It, offers binary image power allure visual beauty her character looks other manipulates it, but then subject rape aftermath wherein she has no control over images on social media subjective dehiscence ensues. Exciting Times, Dolan’s object female bisexual oscillates between two lovers; Ava, therefore, problematizes complicates theory reflection gaze.