Abstract

This study concentrates on the lives of Anglo-Irish Protestant minorities in Ireland, as they are described in Jennifer Johnston’s novels, The Captains and the Kings and The Railway Station Man. Minority problems are one of the most significant issues of today’s global world and Johnston deals with them by emphasizing the marginal position of Anglo-Irish families in Irish society, the gap between social classes, the conflict between Irishness and Englishness and the constant threat of militarism. The Captains and the Kings uses various metaphorical references to render the poignancy of the situations of the Anglo-Irish and English characters. In The Railway Station Man, however, there is an examination of the damaged lives and the readers witness three major characters’ involvement in IRA activities and how they accidentally cause someone’s death and attract all the attention. Johnston’s thematic preoccupations with humane characteristics subverted by misinformation and chance are suggestive of her own Irish Protestant background. Her protagonists struggle to survive despite circumstances that are often meaningless and cruel