ABOUT
Meet Me!
My name is Zenith Nguon
I have a Bachelor of Arts in English and Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from Christopher Newport University (CNU). During my time at CNU, I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Anna Teekell and Dr. Ellen Scheible on their upcoming publication The Dark: A Critical Edition through CNU's Office of Research and Creative Activity (ORCA) Summer Scholars Program. In addition to assisting their publication, I was later awarded an Independent Research Grant from CNU's ORCA to further my own research on The Dark and had the opportunity to present my research at The Network for Undergraduate Research in Virginia (2020), Paideia at CNU (2021), and a poster presentation at the American Conference for Irish Studies Mid-Atlantic and New England Regional Conference (2022). My research has evolved over the years from the way John McGahern's early drafts of the novel inform how the female presence in The Dark influences young Mahoney's construction of identity to the destructive nature of sexual oppression that is presented within the novel.
About The Dark by John McGahern
The Dark by John McGahern was written in 1965. Before the novel could even be printed, it was banned by Ireland's Censorship Publication Board. The banning of the novel in Ireland emphasized the inseparable nature between the Catholic Church and the Irish Republic that continued to oppress the sexuality of Irish adolescents. The Dark touches on themes of sexual gratification, violence, abuse, and incest within the Irish domestic interior. Censorship of the novel forced McGahern to quit his job and live in exile. The tabooing of sexual topics within literature is a continued phenomenon that aims to condemn adolescent youth and reinforce the idealized Irish Republic. It is an integral novel within the Irish Literary Canon to better understand different ways to teach trauma within the classroom and the detrimental effects of censorship, to only name a few of the important topics the novel touches!