《日常叙事与“小政治”：罗迪·多伊尔小说的家庭主题研究》：
Indivulging Jimmy's desire to have extramarital sex, the novel explores the extent to which male sexual adventurousness is allowed and even admired as a display of masculine prowess. Evoking Joey's theory of "soul man's libido", Doyle tries to engage with the mid-life aisis of the family man brought about by his erotic desire for sexually attractive women. In the circumstances, women are to be used as scapegoats, conceived as a threat to male heterosexual identity, and demonized as a danger to the (patriarchal) family.
Sharon, the protagonist of The Snapper, is made pregnant after having drunken sex with George Burgess who is her neighbor and the father of Yvonne Burgess, one of her closest friends. The novel centers on Sharon, but also "brings from the margins truths about the behavior of so-called respectably married men" (Peach 150). Like Jimmy Sr., Burgess is sexually aroused by young, pretty, sexy girls. But unlike Jimmy Sr. whose ego-censor successfully represses the urges of the id, Burgess surrenders to his libido. The seaet remains concealed until Burgess runs away from home. He leaves a note for his wife, begging for forgiveness: "... I hope you will understand, Doris. I cannot abandon this girl. ... I still love you, Doris. But I love this girl as well. I am, as the old song goes, torn between two lovers. I will miss you and the children very much .... P. S. I got a lend of the paper" (BT, 251). At the same time, he tries desperately to lay bare his heart to Sharon: "—I've always liked yeh, Sharon;
I've been livin' a lie for the last fifteen years. Twenty years. The happily married man. Huh. It's taken you to make me cop on. You, Sharon" (BT, 261). Feeling ashamed, Mrs. Burgess imputes her husband's infidelity to "men's silliness"-"Men got funny at George's age .... They went silly when there were girls near them; when her friends had been in the house" (BT, 252). But, the Rabbitte girl (Sharon) is more viaous, Mrs. Burgess thinks, because she "probably took money off him" (BT, 252). Meanwhile Yvonne breaks up with Sharon with disgust and revulsion, blaming Sharon for seducing her father. Detested by his wife and daughter, Mr. Burgess's authority as head of the family is endangered by his imaginary adultery. However, it is noteworthy that in the eyes of the Burgesses, Sharon presents herself as the threat to the family. Mr. Burgess's infidelity and the danger in which he places his own family are mitigated by a prejudice against the sexually attractive young girl.
Here Doyle obviously denounces, in an ironic and parodic way, the shallowness of a '6hedonistic, no-fault individualism" Ooe 12) through Burgess's search for "true love". For all the episode's comic irony, an exploration of the tension between the search for adventure and individualism and the search for family unity is one of its unambiguous themes. An implicit theme in The Snapper, family commitment continues as an expliat theme in Paddy Clarke. Doyle wrote Paddy Clarke in the period between the two divorce referenda. Set in Dublin in 1968, the first-person narrative details a ten-year-old boy's family and school life during the period of his parents' marital breakdown. Throughout the novel the reason why the marriage comes apart is not disclosed to the reader. However, from what the characters read, see, and respond to what is going on in their life.
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