SOURCE: "Ironweed, Alcohol, and Celtic Heroism," in Critique, 33, 2, Winter, 1992, pp. 107-20.

In the following essay, Taylor locates the importance of alcohol as part of the mythic structure of William Kennedy's novel Ironweed.

The hero of William Kennedy's Ironweed, Francis Phelan, differs from many other drunks in modern American fiction—from Don Birnum in The Lost Weekend, from Jake, Brett, Mike, and Bill in The Sun Also Rises, from Gordon Sterrett and Charlie Wales in Fitzgerald's "May Day" and "Babylon Revisited," and from Julian English in Appointment in Samarra—because he is imbued with multicultural myths and stories that glorify his rapture and excess. Layers of legend, folktale, literary allusion, and patterns of the heroic journey reinforce the positive image of his altered consciousness and place him in the ancient tradition of the shaman, magician, voyager to the land of the dead, and culture hero. These carefully constructed layers...