Modernist Themes in Sister Imelda Edna O Brien
There are several striking things about the short story, Sister Imelda, by Edna O’Brien, not only about the occurrences in the story, but also the modernist themes of the story. O’Brien herself was experiencing some of the very things that most of her contemporaries felt: the stress of war, loss of identity, and questioning of her own religious upbringing. These very themes are captured in the story of an un-named girl and her relationship with a nun in a convent school. One of the first such themes is a fragmented world view. ... At one moment she is in math class, and in the next instance she is in the Home Economics room eating cakes with Sister Imelda. ... Sister Imelda sees the opportunities that lay before the girls and for that reason she was a little bit harder on some of the girls to compensate for her own feelings of jealousy and depression over the fact that she had closed herself to any other possibilities.