|
|
|
|
|
“The strategies applied in the story ‘A Mother’ are very similar to the characters in Ivy Day (the canvassers are as mercenary as the politicians they work for. They engage in a conversation of sublime banality, referring among other topics to the tragic end of Parnell). I do not think that Mrs. Kearney, although aptly characterized by Joyce, is worthy of all the critical ink spent on the psychological or moral analysis of her behavior. This story tropes a political mood in which all the participants are given the same mean social and moral colouring; their individual importance (depth) is therefore weakened in proportion to their (paltry) public role. The scheming ,mother and daughter are no worse than the shady and clownish ‘patriots’ and their entourage: ‘Happy’ Holohan, ‘assistant secretary of the Eire Abu Society,’ walking up and down Dublin with dirty pieces of paper in his pocket, organizing the patriotic concerts; the faded soprano; the ‘first item’ shaking ‘like an aspen’; and the dignified baritone, who is above it all probably because he has been paid in advance. This story is a triumph of little details and banalities and is comparable to Chekhov’s masterpieces. However, after Joyce’s much publicized pronouncements on Irish paralysis and corruption, the reader is surprised to find that his writing pulsates with vitality, offering us a less negative and a less subversive picture of Irish life than he professed he would. Indeed, perhaps no city that can name a fellow ‘Hoppy Holohan’ with such a happy feeling for assonance can be quite damned , and a writer who with a few strokes can create suave Mr. O’Madden Burke, led to the drinks in an upstairs room ‘by instinct’ and using his ‘magniloquent western name’ as the ‘moral umbrella upon which he balanced the fine problem of his finances’, cannot be motivated in his writing only by disgust.” The following is a passage from Richard Ellmann’s
“James Joyce’: From a letter of Joyce to Stanislaus: “The order of the stories is as follows. The Sisters , An Encounter and another story (Araby) which are stories of my childhood: The Boarding-House, After the Race and Eveline, which are stories of adolescence: Clay, Counterparts and A Painful Case which are stories of mature life: Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother and the last story of the book (Grace) which are stories of public life in Dublin. When you remember that Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years, that it is the ‘second’ city of the British Empire, that it is three times as big as Veniceit seems strange that no artist has given it to the world.” A Mother is not easy to summarize; There is hardly a plot, except what can be stated in one line: How a controlling, demanding mother ruins her daughter’s part in a concert performance; the daughter goes along with the mother’s interfering ways and is complicit in the scheming. The story opens thus: Mr. Holohan, assistant secretary of the Eire Abu Society, had been walking up and down Dublin for nearly a month, with his hands and pockets full of dirty pieces of paper, arranging about the series of concerts. Eire Abu was a patriotic society whose Gaelic motto means “Ireland to Victory”. Mr. Holohan had a game leg and for this his friends called him Hoppy Holohan. But it was Mrs. Kearney who arranged everything. Mrs. Kearney had been educated in a high-class convent where she had learnt French and music. When she came of the age of marriage, she married out of spite, to silence wagging tongues. She married Mr. Kearney, a bootmaker on Ormond Quay. He was much older than her and after the first year of marriage she perceived that such a man as her husband would wear better than a romantic person. He was sober, thrifty and pious. They had two daughters and the elder, Kathleen, was sent to a good convent. When the Irish Revival (the renewed interest in Irish legend and the Irish language associated with Nationalist politics in the 1890s) began to be appreciable, Mrs. Kearney took advantage of her daughter’s name (Kathleen-ni-Houlihan, the traditional personification of Ireland, was celebrated by the writers of the Irish Revival) and brought an Irish teacher at home, presumably to teach Gaelic to her daughter(s). Kathleen became more known after this, as a very nice girl, clever at music and as a believer in the language movement. Mr. Holohan then proposed that Kathleen should be the accompanist at a series of four grand concerts which his Society was going to give at the Ancient Concert Rooms. Mrs. Kearney brought Mr. Holohan into the drawing-room and brought out the decanter and the silver biscuit barrel. After going into details a contract was drawn up by which Kathleen was to receive eight guineas for her services as accompanist at the four grand concerts. Mr. Holohan was a novice in the matter of promoting the concerts and Mrs. Kearney helped him in all matters such as the wording of bills and disposing of items for a programme. She undertook a little expense to buy a ‘lovely blush-pink charmeuse to let into the front of Kathleen’s dress’ and took a dozen two-shilling tickets for the final concert and sent them to ‘those friends who could not be trusted to come otherwise.’ The concerts were to be four Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Mrs. Kearney did not like the look of things on the first night. It started late because of poor attendance and she confronted Mr. Holohan about ‘what it meant’. Mr. Holohan thought the committee had made a mistake in arranging four concerts, they were too many. He also said that the Committee had stacked all the talent for the last concert and ‘let the other three concerts go as they pleased’. She was irritated by the vacant smile of Mr Fitzpatrick, the secretary of the Society. Things were only slightly better on Thursday night . ‘The audience behaved indecorously as if the concert were an informal dress rehearsal. Mr. Fitzpatrick seemed to enjoy himself; he was quite unconscious that Mrs. Kearney was taking angry note of his conduct’. She also learnt that that the Friday concert was to be abandoned and that the committee was ‘going to move heaven and earth to secure a bumper house on Saturday night.’ She sought out Mr.Holohan and confronted him about this, saying that that did not alter the contract, which was for four concerts. Mr. Holohan passed the buck by saying she had to speak to Mr. Fitzpatrick, who in turn said he would bring the matter (of Mrs. Kearney’s insisting on full advance payment for four concerts) before the Committee. On Friday morning, handbills were distributed in the streets of Dublin announcing the grand event for Saturday night. Mrs. Kearney warned her husband about her suspicions (about the expected failure of the concert) and he said it would be better if he went with her on Saturday night. She agreed to that. ‘She respected her husband in the same way as she the General Post Office, as something large, secure and fixed; and though she knew the small number of his talents she appreciated his abstract value as a male….She thought her plans over.’ On the final night of the concert Mrs. Kearney, her daughter Kathleen and Mr.Kearney arrived three-quarters of an hour before the time the concert was to begin. By ill luck it was a rainy evening. Mrs. Kearney went around looking for Mr.Holohan and Mr. Fitzpatrick, seeking a confrontation regarding payment of the eight guineas. The artistes started arriving. The hall was filling up and the delay in starting the performance resulted in ‘sounds of encouragement, clapping and stamping of feet.’ Finally Mr. Holohan and one Mr. O’Madden Burke came into the room where Mrs. Kearney was. Mrs. Kearney made it clear to Mr. Holohan that Kathleen would not go in unless the eight guineas were paid right away. Mr. Holohan pleaded vainly for her co-operation and in the face of the clamour from the hall, went out with Mr. Fitrzpatrick who later returned with four banknotes for Mrs. Kearney with the promise that the balance would be paid in the interval. The amount was four shillings short of the half payment, as Mrs. Kearney pointed out, but Kathleen went in with the singer Mr. Bell, the first item. The first part of the concert was quite successful except for Madam Glynn’s item. All this time, the dressing room was a hive of excitement., with stewards, secretaries and some artistes debating about what should be done at the interval, everyone aware that Mrs. Kearney was threatening to withdraw her daughter unless she was paid the full amount. As soon as the first part of the concert was over, Mr. Holohan and Mr. Fitzpatrick went over to Mrs. Keraney and said that she would get the other four guineas after the committee meeting on the next Tuesday. Mrs. Kearney insisted on payment at once and words were exchanged between her and Mr. Holohan. Mrs. Kearney’s conduct was condemned by almost everyone present. Mrs. Kearney ‘stood at the door, haggard with rage, arguing with her husband and daughter, gesticulating with them. She waited until it was time for the second part to begin in the hope that the secretaries would approach her. The second part was about to begin, someone else having agreed to play one or two accompaniments. Mrs. Kearney then asked her husband to get a cab. As Mrs. Kearney passed through the exit doorway she stopped and glared into Mr. Holohan’s face. "I am not done with you yet", she said. "But I’m done with you", said Mr. Holohan. There was little doubt that Kathleen’s musical career in Dublin had ended by her mother’s conduct that night. Mr. Kearney had simply stood by taking orders from Mrs. Kearney and Kathleen had gone along with her mother’s strategy. As with Maria in Clay and Mr. Duffy in A Painful Case, one feels that one knows someone like tha main character of the story in real life. The controlling, domineering mother whose children get stifled by her overpowering ways ? I can think of at least one person exactly like Mrs. Kearney. Again, Joyce’s talent lies in drawing up character with a few fine strokes with great economy. A suggestion for the future discussions of stories. Most are so short that they need not be summarized at all. One can assume that members of the group have read the story. That way we will get more room for comments and discussion of any aspect we consider worthy of attention. Let us PLEASE have a lot more comments than we have been having. I fear this group will soon die unless this happens and we will all be the losers. --Rasik Shah |
|
|
|
|