크레이지 제인은 예이츠 후기시의 퍼소나를 논할 때면 어김없이 비평의 초점이 되어 왔다. 소스연구, 페미니즘적 분석, 정신분석학적 해석, 전기적 사실분석, 후기식민사관적 연구 등 다양한 접근이 잇었으나 크레이지 제인의 초상은 대체로 세 가지로 분류되는 바, 예이츠의 객관적 마스크로서, 예이츠의 타자를 표현하는 양성적 목소리이자 성역할전도의 주체로서, 그리고 전통적인 성역할에 대한 예이츠의 수정이 자 아일랜드라는 국가적 아이덴티티로서이다. 본 논문의 초점은, 크레이지 제인이 이 세 가지 초상의 결합체인 동시에, 더 중요하게는 단순한 결합을 넘어 선/악으로 대비 되는 모든 대비적인 것의 구원적 통합이라는 것이다.
In the early twentieth century, Ireland was still under the colonial rule and the struggle for independence was at its height. Besides the political struggle, there were cultural movements and the Irish Dramatic Movement was one of those movements. W. B. Yeats was perhaps the most important leader in the Movement and his ideal was to create a national drama of Ireland and to have the Irish people recover their identity. Yeats wanted to create his own original dramatic form which was different from realistic dramas. In Yeats’s plays, imagery, symbols, style and plot are well organized and unified as an organic whole. Therefore, the characters usually have symbolic meanings. In Cathleen Ni Houlihan(1902), Cathleen is a symbol of Ireland. The setting of the play is a cottage of Killala in 1798. A young person named Michael is marrying Delia Cahel, a beautiful young girl. And a poor old woman enters the cottage and says that her land has been taken from her and many people have died for love of her. This is Cathleen ni Houlihan, a personification of Ireland. At the end of the play the poor old woman is transformed into a beautiful young girl. The woman can be a symbol of the sovereignty of Ireland and Michael can be a symbol of a king of Ireland. The transformation is the result of the symbolical marriage of land and king. Deirdre, the heroine of Deirdre(1907), is an important figure in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. In Yeats’s Deirdre, Deirdre comes back to Ireland from a long exile with her lover, Naoise with promises of King Conchubar’s forgiveness. However, the treachery of Conchubar is revealed and Naoise is killed. At last Deirdre commits suicide. In this play, Deirdre is an archetypal figure who symbolizes the exile and misfortune of Irish people under the colonial rule. Therefore, Deirdre can be considered as an apt symbol of Ireland. In the last scene, Deirdre does not lose her dignity and chooses her death. In the early twentieth century, Irish people felt a great sympathy for the tragic experience and misfortune of Cathleen Ni Houlihan and Deirdre in Yeats’s plays and they would consider them the symbols of Ireland. With the dramatization of those heroines, Yeats helped to encourage Irish people to recover national consciousness.