Transcending the Patriarchal Border and Re-claiming the Self in Edna O’Brien’s The Light of Evening

The article offers a new postmodern feminist reading of Edna O’Brien’s The Light of Evening (2007), contextualizing it within theories of performativity and mestiza consciousness. It aims at answering questions of identity and agency in the novel and suggests a different reading of the text. In specific, the study points out the different strategies that O’Brien’s character employs to shake the boundaries of patriarchy and adopt a respective self as a woman artist. Eleonora refuses to abide by gender roles assigned to her. Subsequently, she grows to be the New Mestiza who no longer accepts to be confined to the category of the “feminine.” O’Brien’s Eleonora develops a mestiza consciousness that is borderless and uncategorical.