Home, both as representation and as alived experience, has always been central to the narrative of Irish author Edna O'Brien. In this article, though, we seek to explore issues of space and identity that go beyond the question of Ireland.Written at the age of 81, Saints and sinnersdisplay a series of characters who, engulfed by loneliness, experience a persistent crave for a home. In the collection of short stories, homes are constantly constituted by transient representations in an attempt to articulate the Heideggerianfourfold. It is to these representations that the characters in the stories temporarily cling and make theirs in order to provide their lives with meaning and to continue living. Mostly based on an initial BA dissertation devoted to the study of the entire literary work, this article explores the notion ofhome in "Sinners," the most representative of the short stories in view of our hypothesis. We expect our reflectionto developnot only current discussions on space and identity but also on home as a place to dwell, a concept that has become truly elusive in contemporary times.
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