48 pages • 1 hour read
Donal RyanThe Queen of Dirt Island
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Women in Society
The Queen of Dirt Island explores the treatment women face in contemporary Irish society. Throughout the novel, women consistently face a standard that their male peers do not, and they are subject to gender-based oppression at the hands of both men and women.
The community’s reaction to Saoirse’s pregnancy highlights the double standard faced by women in the novel. When Saoirse becomes pregnant, the blame for her pregnancy is directed at her rather than the singer who assaulted her; he is not even aware of the existence of his daughter. This blame does not just come from the men in their village, either. At first, both Eileen and Nana blame Saoirse for becoming pregnant as a teenager, which got Eileen driven out of her family home in the first place. It takes the intervention of Saoirse’s uncles Chris and Paudie to convince Eileen and Nana to treat her with compassion. Eileen and Nana have internalized the standards of the society that they live in, believing that pregnancy is always the fault of the mother, not the father, and they treat Saoirse poorly due to those conceptions. Saoirse also gets this treatment from Oonagh, who accosts her in the street, thinking that her boyfriend, Oisín, is the father of Saoirse’s child. Oonagh is only convinced to back off after Eileen headbutts her, showing how deep the internalization of these ideas goes.
While Saoirse faces mistreatment by women following her pregnancy, the novel’s male characters perpetrate some of its most violent acts of gender-based aggression. For instance, Richard feels safe attacking Eileen to force her to sign her land over to him because she’s a woman. As soon as Josh steps in, Richard flees, showing that his respect is conditional on the gender of the person he’s interacting with. Josh, himself, is not immune to acting in selfish and entitled ways due to gender. The book that he writes with Saoirse’s notes demonstrates this entitlement as the book has taken Saoirse’s story and twisted it for Josh’s own ends. He demonstrates a lack of respect for her story in claiming it this way for himself, without even the self-awareness that he is doing so. However, by this point in the novel, Saoirse has grown enough as a character to recognize what is happening and breaks up with Josh over this betrayal, showing that internalized misogyny can only extend as far as the characters let it.
The Bonds of Family
One of the most important themes explored in The Queen of Dirt Island is that of The Bonds of Family. Throughout the novel, the Aylward family faces many difficult times and tests, and each time, their familial bond brings them back together. Family, within the novel, takes the form of safety from the judgments and rejections of the wider world as well as from the physical danger the women are frequently subjected to. When Saoirse is a teenager, for instance, her attempts to create bonds outside of her family structure with Oisín and Breedie fail miserably. Saoirse faces social judgment for these choices and retreats into her family to protect herself, becoming closer to Eileen and Nana in the process.
However, these bonds are not unbreakable nor are they a guaranteed solution. Doreen, for instance, is in the same family as Saoirse but doesn’t receive nearly the same level of support due to Nana’s dislike of her. Doreen reveals that she feels lonely and rejected by her family and Chris. This eventually culminates in Pearl’s brief kidnapping and Doreen’s suicide. In Doreen’s case, the bonds of family are not enough to overcome her loneliness; though she has an increasingly close relationship with Saoirse, her jealousy over Pearl takes precedence in her mind. In the novel, then, the bonds of family only work to bring people together if pursued without ulterior motives. Another example of this is Josh and Honey, who, though they are not literal family, become functionally family due to being Pearl’s godparents. The bonds of the Aylward family aren’t enough to keep Honey near or Josh and Saoirse together as a couple; those bonds become interrupted by outside and internal factors, such as Honey’s wanderlust and Josh’s entitlement and selfishness.
As a character, Saoirse’s mother Eileen believes the most in the bonds of family. After being rejected by her family due to her pregnancy, the family she creates with Saoirse, Nana, and Pearl is of utmost importance to her. This compassion and closeness is even extended to Richard after he attacks and chokes her as she eventually decides to sell him the property he coveted to give Pearl a better future. Family bonds, in this case, do end up solving multiple issues: in pursuing the bonds of family rather than selfishness and anger, Eileen is able to heal her relationship with her brother at the same time as providing her granddaughter with the life she always wanted.
The Pitfalls of Relationships
The Queen of Dirt Island explores the potential pitfalls of romantic relationships, a theme related to The Bonds of Family. In the novel, relationships are frequently doomed: Saoirse’s father dies in an accident on the way home from the hospital after her birth, her mother’s rejection of Chris leads him to pursue a toxic marriage with Doreen, Saoirse is assaulted by the singer of a band who she decided to trust, and Oisín and Josh both betray Saoirse’s trust at different points. None of the romantic relationships in the novel end happily, with the possible exception of Josh and Honey (who, at the end of the book, are back together but without an indication if their relationship is more supportive than it was before). The characters instead make meaning in their lives and gain emotional support from their family, rather than their partners. Eileen realizes this early on; following her rejection of Chris, she briefly goes on dates but stops once she realizes that she’d rather work on being closer to her family rather than strange men.
The character most affected by the pitfalls of relationships is Saoirse, who is betrayed by the two boys she decides to romantically pursue. First is Oisín, who treats her with anger when she acts vulnerable. Second is Josh, who first dates her as a replacement for Honey and then distorts her life story for his pulpy novel. Instead of relying on men for support, Saoirse finds support and love from the female members of her family: when she’s young, her mother and grandmother, and when she’s older, her daughter, Pearl. Early on, Saoirse continuously tries to find support outside her family, primarily through Oisín and Breedie. When those attempts fail, Saoirse begins to lean on Josh and Honey. However, none of those relationships end up being as close or long-lasting as those of family. Saoirse’s arc through The Queen of Dirt Island involves her increasingly turning toward her family for support. By the end of the novel, her family stories have become an acclaimed book—Saoirse has managed to translate the support she feels from her family into a wider narrative to be consumed by others.
