Hero or Traitor? A Linguistic Analysis of the Literary Representation of Roger Casement in Sabina Murray’s "Valiant Gentlemen"

Abstract

More than one hundred years after his death, the life of the controversial Irish nationalist and British consular official Roger Casement is still of great interest to historians and novelists alike. In this paper I explore the discursive representation of Roger Casement in Sabina Murray’s Valiant Gentlemen (2016). In the light of theories on trauma and memory (Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, Levy 2011) I analyse the character’s development in relation to his experiences in the Congo and the Amazon. From a critical linguistic perspective (Fowler 1996) combined with the system of Appraisal within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin, White 2005), I analyse the construction of this character’s identity in the process of his transformation from a loyal British subject to an Irish revolutionary.