Introduction

Construction of Identity in Northern Irish Novels 251
According to Joachim von der Thüsen three linguistic operations are of significance
for portraying the city. They are necessary for “image-making” and are
the symbolic, the metaphoric and the metonymic (1). He describes it in the following
way: “Image-making of the city is concerned with the assignment of meaning
to an otherwise meaningless medley of heterogeneous phenomena” (ibid.1).
The city thus receives a certain value because its citizens or visitors connect particular
remembrances, associations or general knowledge with single parts of the
city. On the symbolic level Van der Thüsen describes the city as an icon that is
actually larger than the city itself. A more general truth results from this assumption.
This “truth” can either be an ultimate truth or a more neutral one; that is the
city can be elevated to an ideal or it can be represented in a rather unbiased way.
The city can also be associated with a specified culture or phase of civilization.
While in the nineteenth century London was one of the central cities in literature,
the twentieth century is rather linked to New York (ibid. 2).
Metaphorically the city is presented in terms of a definite construct, which is
normally not associated with urbanity. As examples Van der Thüsen mentions
images of a body, monster, ocean or jungle (ibid. 2). These metaphoric connections
can be regarded in positive, negative or neutral ways depending on what a
person – traveller or reader – might associate with the city and how he or she
perceives it.
“On the metonymic level of image-making, a totally different procedure
emerges. Here, the image of a city is made up of the customs, structures and
buildings which are specific to that particular city” (ibid. 3). Most people link certain
objects that are particular for a city with it. Prominent examples might be
London and the Houses of Parliament, especially Big Ben, or San Francisco and
the Golden Gate Bridge. In case of Belfast the Stormont where the government is
situated and the river Lagan are noteworthy.
In the case of Belfast as depicted in the novels it can be seen that all three of
these image-making tools apply. Symbolically Belfast is strongly associated with
the violent outbreaks of a Protestant and Catholic paramilitary war. In the eyes of
many foreign nations Belfast became the decisive scene of the Troubles in the
second half of the twentieth century. On the metonymic level Belfast’s customs,
traditions and buildings stand in correlation with Protestant and Catholic murals
that can be found all over the city as well as the acronyms of various organisations
such as the UVF or the IRA as depicted in Eureka Street in the form of the mysterious
acronym “OTG” (McLiam Wilson 22). Names like the Shankill Road or the
Shankill Butchers 34 also became synonymous for Belfast during the Troubles. Van
der Thüsen describes this phenomenon as “markers of the city” (ibid. 3). Citizens
experience the cityscape by typical buildings and preconceived images about
neighbourhoods. In Belfast for example each citizen knows which areas are rather
34 A Protestant gang using butcher’s knives in order to kill Catholics during the 1970s (Mulhol-
land 89).