Forms of Violence in Audrey Magee’s The Colony

This article aims to analyse various representations of violence in Audrey Magee’s novel The Colony (2022). Violence is defined here as any form of oppression, discrimination, or coercion that inflicts harm, whether physical or psychological, on individuals or groups. The framework of postcolonial theory provides a comprehensive epistemic foundation for this analysis; additionally, for clarity, a distinction is drawn between “postcolonial” and “neocolonial”, with the former referring to the examination of the legacy of colonial subjugation, and the latter denoting patterns of behaviour shaped by enduring colonial attitudes. The neocolonial perspective is most evident in the actions of two foreign visitors – one an English painter, the other a French linguist – engaged in an acrimonious battle over “their” island. The analysis will also examine the contentious issue of whether the novel suggests that Ireland’s colonial past can explain the country’s later difficulties. The Colony implies that English colonialism is responsible for the brutal violence of the Troubles and the decline of the Irish language, while the third form of violence, relating to discrimination against women, is more complex; Magee is inclined to blame the marginalisation of women on the inherent oppressiveness of Irish Catholicism rather than on the abuses of English imperialism.