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Hello all, I am not up to speed with all of you but decided to jump in with _A Mother_, and find I have a somewhat different take than the general tone of commentary. Of course Mrs. Kearny is not a character to admire -- and yet, I find haunting traces in the story that, if the author had desired to follow, would have given us a more rounded picture of her and less of a cartoon-like creature like Hyacinth on the BBC sitcom, "Keeping Up Appearances." When we meet her, Joyce tells us in exquisite language, "As she was naturally pale and unbending in manner she made few friends at school. When she came to the age of marriage she was sent out to many houses, where her playing and ivory manners were much admired." ( I love the "ivory manners"). Then "She sat amid the chilly circle of her accomplishments, ..." I hear in those words a young woman who is trying hard to follow the rules, study well, develop skill, because there is a certain lost and lonely quality to her. I feel as though this character is blundering through her life, not so much malevolently, but as though she were carefully following a map, and has not noticed that it is to the wrong territory. To be unbending in manner is a characteristic of many shy people, and not one much valued by school chums. Perhaps I find these details so evocative because the language reminds me somewhat of my own mother, with whom I had a complicated realtionship, but who, I realize more and more as life goes on, was trying hard to do what she thought right. Joyce then says she marries for "spite" but does not show any behavior that I would call spiteful. Desperate, perhaps, because in those days a girl needed to marry to have any kind of life. She "settled" in a sense for the older, stable and quiet bootmaker, but there is no detail in the story that shows her being unkind towards him -- in fact, the reverse. Though she did not realize her romantic dreams, Joyce several times mentions that she found comfort in her husband, and respected him. There is some confusing implication to me that the author is on the one hand criticizing the lonely girl for having dreams, and also criticizing the woman she became for being unable to fulfill those dreams though the avenues to such fulfillment were closed to her. Of course she behaves badly at the concerts. Again, partly, I feel, because she has not understood that no one is really taking these events seriously. SHE certainly does -- fidddling with programme bills, adjusting the order of appearance of the various artistes to build the audience mood to the right pitch, etc. Once again, she is studying the wrong map and clueless about the real territory. And when she realizes, too late, how disorganized and sloppy and off-hand the whole enterprise is, she feels betrayed and affronted, and perhaps, somewhat put upon as well. This makes her angry, with unfortunate results for Kathleen. What we see here, in part, is a woman who has some talent and energy, but no real scope in the world to exercise them. Of course she wants her daughter to have that scope, and it is that desire that blinds her to the daughter's immediate needs when things go awry. And, as others have noted, there is a generous helping of social climbing and snobbishness. But I also felt some genuine confusion, disappointment, and a talent for putting the wrong social foot forward -- which may be more clumsy than wicked. Am not up to snuff on Joyce criticism at all -- these are just my initial gut level responses. I did read in a general opening summation of _The Dubliners_ as a whole, that it represents the stultifying society that drove Joyce to exile -- and that the symbol for that overall is paralysis -- as in the Priest in the first story. And there certainly is a thwarted quality to the atmosphere in this story that could destroy the nervous system! It has been decades since I have read these stories and _Portrait_, so I really don't know what's coming as we move through the Joycean Opus. I do hope, though, that this story is NOT introducing a Blame The Mother theme that will carry on in the rest of the work. In that case I'll have to arm myself with some good feminist criticism to bolster my spirits as I read along. Best, CJ Gillen Wonderful comments, Gillen! Yes, Joyce's character of Mrs. Kearney is not a rounded up character as you say, is almost a caricature as I said. I guess the story can be read on many levels. On one level one can worry about the symbolism - what Kearny stands for, whom Holohan represents, etc. On the other level, forgetting about Ireland, forgetting about Joyce, one can look at this story trying to understand the background of the behaviour of people like Mrs. Kearney. Otherwise it is so easy to dispense Mrs. Kearny off as being neurotic. Was Joyce not looking at people as people when he wrote Mother? Chandra END! |
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