The Irish Literary Times

When Eavan Boland establishes herself as the object in Object Lessons (1996), she is clearly invoking a multi-layered pun: beyond serving as a “striking practical example of a principle or ideal,” as an Irish woman she has felt herself objectified in the national tradition; she has been the object of the male gaze; she objects to her status; she has been the object of the sentence, the noun to which things are done.[1] She invokes the many definitions of “object”: “a statement thrown in or introduced in opposition”; “something placed before the eye”; “something which on being seen excites a particular emotion, as admiration, horror, disdain, commiseration, amusement; a sight, spectacle, gazing-stock”; “that to which action, thought, or feeling is directed”; “the end to which effort is directed”; or “the fact of throwing itself or being thrown in the way.”[2] In the theoretical stance of subjectivity, she lists herself as object.