Lost in Space: Geography,Architecture and Culture in Eilís ni Dhuibhne’s The Bray House

It may seem redundant to suggest that “space matters” in postcolonial study, yet postcolonial criticism strangely and ironically elides the vast physical differences among formerly colonized spaces. Given that, in sheer numbers, islands formed roughly 70% of the total British Empire, how island geography influences postcolonial literary narratives of nation formation, both in formal and figurative senses, is a tantalizingly underexplored question. Eilís Ní Dhuibhne’s The Bray House transforms a British Robinsonian-island adventure tale into an ironic depiction of 20th-century Irish culture. Robin narrates Ní Dhuibhne’s novel, telling the story of the expedition, of Ireland before the accident, and of Sweden both before and since. The parallel with and parody of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in The Bray House extends beyond the joke that Ní Dhuibhne’s Robin is no one’s son. Ní Dhuibhne revises the relationships between architecture and geography found in Defoe’s protocolonial text. Where Defoe models both British nation and British colony in the image of Crusoe’s island estate, Ní Dhuibhne uses Defoe to interrogate the situation of postcolonial Ireland.