AMERICAN DREAM AND IRISH IMMIGRANT WOMAN EILIS: ANALYSING BROOKLYN MOVIE

Year 2019, Issue: 41, 202 - 212, 31.03.2019

Özlem Özdemir

https://doi.org/10.17498/kdeniz.490460

Abstract

Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015) movie is about a young immigrant woman who moves intercontinental from Ireland to the United States by a a ship in the 1950s to live American dream. The film is extremely important in terms of addressing the migration of women. Because, gendering migration has become one of the most important issues in the 1980s and early 1990s. Studies on international migration in these years; they stated that women should be considered as individual, independent and active, not passive migrants who go after their spouses or families. The film draws attention at this point. The conditions in Ireland, the traditional structure of the townspeople, and the lack of regular employment have made Eilis depressed. This is how the young woman starts her journey to America, providing better conditions, jobs and education. The film is important in two respects.  First, historically it describes the reasons of migration from poor country to developed one. The latter, visually presents the problems, experiences, thoughts and conditions of an immigrant woman in both countries. In this context, the film was analyzed by semiotics method. As a result of the analysis, it was found that a young woman is actively and independently migrated, and this migration has empowered her due to the education, better life style and business opportunity in America.  

Keywords

Ireland, United States of America, International Migration, Brooklyn Movie, Sending Country

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