Setting/locations form a dual identity within Eilis
Locations [JA1] play a significant role in guiding Eilis’ narrative, as Brooklyn and Enniscorthy form a dual identity within her.
- Able to be self-possessed when she moves away from Enniscorthy*
- She found herself thanking him in a tone that Rose might have used, a tone warm and private but also slightly distant though not shy either, a tone used by a woman in full possession of herself. It was something she could not have done in the town or in a place where any of her family or friends might have seen her.
- ‘I almost never wear make-up at home’… ‘Well, you’re about to enter the land of the free and the brave’
- Her Brooklyn self is incongruent with Enniscorthy self Keeps up image of Enniscorthy self in letters*
- It made her almost smile at the idea that no one in Ireland knew that America was the coldest place on earth and its people on a cold morning like this the most deeply miserable. They would not believe it if she put it in a letter.
- In her letters to her mother, however, Eilis had never once mentioned him
- Can’t join two selves together*
- her mother had not asked her one question about her time in America, or even her trip home
- She had planned to show her mother the letter from Brooklyn College.. also bought her mother a cardigan and scarf and some stocking, but her mother had almost absent-mindedly left them aside, saying that she would open them later (like Eilis with Tony’s letters, attempting to keep two world separate)
- She wished now that she had not married him, not because she did not love him and intend to return to him, but because not telling her mother or her friends made every day she had spent in America a sort of fantasy, something she could not match with the time she was spending at home. It made her feel strangely as though she were two people, one who had battled against two cold winters and many hard days in Brooklyn and fallen in love there, and the other who was her mother’s daughter, the Eilis whom everyone knew, or thought they knew.
- When she came back into the kitchen, having had her bath and put on the fresh clothes, her mother looked her up and down in vague disapproval. It struck Eilis that maybe the colours she was wearing were too bright, but she did not have any darker colours.
- This duality of self and incongruence between her two setting-defined identities means that when her Brooklyn self comes back to haunt her Enniscorthy self, Eilis must choose between the two[JA2] – can’t maintain more than one*
- Miss Kelly phone call is the catalyst for the two sides suddenly coming into one
- Eilis must reject her Enniscorthy self (leaves the key, forgets umbrella)
- Doesn ;t open the letters to Tony and knows the \
- photo with Jim will be like a hazy dream.
Setting reflects identity shift
Both Brooklyn and Enniscorthy are presented to the reader through the lens of Eilis’ perception of them – therefore, they play a role in reflecting the shift in her sense of home and belonging.
- Eilis’ cocoon, insular mentality reflected through her relationship with Enniscorthy*
- Casual listing of places
- (during sale) there were times when she thought in a flash of an early evening in October walking with her mother down by the prom in Enniscorthy, the Slaney River glassy and full, the daylight going slowly and gently, the smell of burnt leaves nearby. This scene kept coming to her as she filled the bag with natoes and coins
- Eilis loved closing the dorr of her old room and drawing the curtains
- Her initial sense of loss and discomforted reflected through perception of Brooklyn in Part 2*
- for the moment it would remain muggy and humid and everyone would move slowly and wearily in the streets.
- A lot of description of the house – center of her world
- Once she arrived at Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn began to feel like a strange place to her, with so many gaps between buildings and so many derelict buildings
- . Every day she had come back to this small room in this house full of sounds and gone over everything new that had happened. Now, all that seemed like nothing compared to the picture she had of home, of her own room, the house in Friary Street, the food she had eaten there, the clothes she wore, how quiet everything was.
- It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything. The rooms in the house on Friary Street belonged to her, she thought; when she moved in them she was really there. In the town, if she walked to the shop or to the Vocational School, the air, the light, the ground, it was all solid and part of her, even if she met no one familiar. Nothing here was part of her.
- Her belonging in Brooklyn is likewise reflected through her perception of it*
- (baseball fever) What surprised her was that she had noticed nothing of it the previous year although it must have been going on around her with the same intensity
- It was still bright and the air was warm… It was something that had seemed unimaginable in the winter
- (after passing all exams) began to observe how beautiful everything was.. She had never felt like this before in Brooklyn… The letter had given her a new freedom, she realized, and it was something she had not expected… In a year the weather would grow hotter and unbearable… And winter too would dissolve into spring and early summer with long sunny evenings after work until she would again, she hoped, get a letter from Brooklyn College..
Setting reflects global order
Beyond the story of Eilis Lacey, Brooklyn and Enniscorthy are significant in their contrasting attitudes and traditions, as the shift in migration towards Brooklyn represents the global rebalancing of cultural and economic power, as well as the change in the values of the Western world that come with it.
- Enniscorthy is representative of stagnation, lack of modernity and insularity – ‘old world’*
- Status-driven structure of town
- Economic + societal stagnation – youth leaving
- Lack of choice and power for consumers (shops all sell the same things (have to go to Dublin to buy clothes), Miss Kelly disapproving of those who buy items on the wrong day)
- America is growth and progress, equality, social mobility*
- Plenty of jobs
- Consumerist culture driven = egalitarian (Nylon sale, black customers in shop)
- Long Island represents opportunity for social mobility that is present in America – migrants who live in crowded flats can go to owning their own home
- Emphasis on new fashions “people will laugh at you if you don’t have [sunglasses],”
- Progressive attitudes towards sex (Eilis’ confession)
Eilis’ rejection of Enniscorthy and the overall migration trend shows the shift towards a world centred around the attitudes and fashions of America as places like Enniscorthy get left behind
Reserved nature of Irish comm brought out by prose
The prose style can also be seen as a reflection not only of Eilis’ personal nature, but the reserved nature of her Irish community. Interactions between Eilis and her family serve to illustrate this reservedness towards the acknowledging of emotions and constant reliance on the continuation of the performance of self. Rose, Eilis and their mother are unable to openly discuss their feelings towards the unresolved emotional conflicts they face, such as the death of the father, the departure of the brothers and Eilis’ migration, as it is too painful to confront these issues. Instead, they work on assumed knowledge of one another’s feelings, each of them ‘knowing so much that they could do everything except say out loud what they were thinking’. The family binds itself in the performance of happiness to avoid confrontation, with Eilis describing the house before her departure as being ‘almost unnaturally happy’ with ‘too much talk and laughter’ with everyone ‘doing everything to hide their feelings’. The depth of their reliance on this performance is shown in Eilis’ stunned reaction to her mother’s breakdown in front of their neighbour, as even when her mother is visibly distressed, Eilis can do nothing more than to lean back on the familiarity of performance, making small talk with her neighbour, ‘hoping her mother would soon return and they could resume what had seemed like an ordinary conversation’. Toibin’s prose and perspective therefore both reflect and bring out the reserved nature of Eilis’ Irish community.
Eilis individual growth
Eilis’ increasing self-possession and her eventual rejection of the parochialism of Enniscorthy are clear indicators of the growth she has undergone within the scope of her move to America.[JA1]
- Growth of opportunities, agency and self-possession while she is inhabiting her Brooklyn self*
- She found herself thanking him in a tone that Rose might have used, a tone warm and private but also slightly distant though not shy either, a tone used by a woman in full possession of herself. It was something she could not have done in the town or in a place where any of her family or friends might have seen her.
- ‘I almost never wear make-up at home’… ‘Well, you’re about to enter the land of the free and the brave’
- Adopts role of Miss Bartocci*
- Eilis’s costume, which she had bought in Arnotts in Dublin, had had to be altered, as the skirt and the sleeves were too long. It was bright red and with it she was wearing a white cotton blouse with accessories she had brought from America–stockings with a tinge of red, red shoes, a red hat and a white handbag. Her mother was going to wear a grey tweed suit that she had bought in Switzers (She watched Rose crossing the street from sunlight into shade, carrying the new leather handbag that she had bought in Clerys in Dublin in the sale. ) (She wrote to her mother and Rose about Miss Bartocci’s flaring red costume and white plain blouse, her red high-heeled shoes, her hair, which was shiny black and perfect. Her lipstick was bright red and her eyes were the blackest Eilis had ever seen.)
- Chooses the life she has built in Brooklyn
- Rejection of enniscorthy (black umbrellas) and cocoons (curtains)
Growth limited by fear
‘Brooklyn’ is a novel whose protagonist’s growth is limited to only certain facets of her personality and restricted from full realisation by her continued fear of risk and conflict.
- Only changes on the surface – inwardly maintains avoidance of major conflict*
- “You have changed,” Nancy said. “You look different. Everything about you is different, not for those who know you, but for people in the town who only know you to see.”“What’s changed?” “You seem more grown up and serious. And in your American clothes you look different. You have an air about you.
- he was asking her now if she would like to live in LI.. suggesting that marriage had already been tacitly agreed between them. It was the details of how they would live that he was presenting now.. She was almost in tears and what he was proposing and how practical he was as he spoke and how serious and sincere. She did not want to say she would think about it because she knew how that might sound. Instead, she nodded and smiled and reached out and held his two hands and pulled him towards her
- At home as she looked at the letters from Tony stored in the chest of drawers in her bedroom, some of them still unopened, she realized that there would never be a time to tell him. It could not be said; his response to her deception could not be imagined. She would have to go back.
- Miss Kelly is deciding factor for her
- Brooklyn affords her more independence and agency than Enniscorthy, but there are still limits on her freedom*
- (tony family visti) she explained that when she finished she would be a bookeeper… As Eilis and Tony’s mother discussed this, none of the boys spoke or looked up from their food. She realized that she would love to run out of this room and down the stairs and through the streets to the subway to her own room and close the door on the world
- when she motioned for him to follow her, he shouted back that he could not swim
- He wanted the two of them to stand up to their necks in the water, holding each other as each wave crashed over them. When she embraced him, he held her so that she could not easily swim away from him... The thought came into her mind of telling him who the last person to touch her bottom was… she did a vigorous backstroke, letting him presume, she hoped, that he was being too free under the water with his hands. Tony, she saw, was afraid of the water, hated her swimming away from him.
- the waves were stronger than at home, not so much in the way they broke but in the way they pulled out.. She realized that she would have to be careful not to swim too far out of her depth in this unfamiliar sea
- She knew that once she and Tony were married she would stay at home, cleaning the house and preparing food and shopping and then having children and looking after them as well. She had never mentioned to Tony that she would like to keep working
Growth limited by society
‘Brooklyn’s’ twin societies, Enniscorthy and America, each impose differing restrictions on the individual which limit change Toibin suggests that Eilis’ passivity may be due to the role of women at the time, as they gain power within a narrow niche, but remain constricted on a broader level. Eilis’ growth in confidence and embracing of sexual capital is reflective of the broader shift within the abilities of women at the time. Eilis’ role models are women who work and are powerful, but, like them, she perceives herself to be confined to a role of caregiver. Though Toibin’s use of the third-person limited perspective readers see Eilis’ worries about havint to stay at home and “clean the house” after her marriage with Tony. Whether or not these worries are justified, Eilis’ consciousness is reflective of the society that shaped women like her in the 1950s - a society which remains dominated by men. It is Mr Brown and Mr Bartcci who “oversee everything” and women are therefore confined to a domestic and retail sphere without wielding real power outside it. This may explain why Eilis is unable to let Go of her fear of conflict - such agency in women is permitted by neither of the societies she finds herself in. In this way, Toibin suggests that individuals can only change insofar as their circumstances and societal attitudes allow them to. - flaring red costume?
Growth = adaptation, change on surface
Toibin’s novel is not only one of growth, but of adaptation to different environments. This is partially why Eilis can only grow and change in some respects – she is able to sacrifice parts, not the whole, of her Enniscorthy self in favour of Brooklyn values. This same adaptation can be seen on a generational level, as the Irish community in Brooklyn adapts to encompass American values, while maintaining an essential Irish identity.
Rejection of Irish self while in Broklyn
- (Patty shows Eilis how to put on eye makeup in parish hall dance bathroom, put her hair up for her) ‘Now you look like a ballet dancer…. Well, at least you don’t look like you’ve just come in from milking the cows any more’ (had same perception of Dolores “looked like a horse-dealer’s wife in Enniscorthy on a fair day”)
- She would look carefully at what other women at the dance were wearing and make sure next time that she did not look too plain… Her dress which Rose had helped her buy also looked terrible
- poured some of the perfume that Rose had given her on the parts on the floor and the blankets where she had vomited
Contrast with other lodgers
Adaptation of Irish in Brooklyn (Father Flood)
Reinvention is necessary
Reinvention is shown by Toibin to be a necessity for survival and personal growth. The Irish migrant community in Brooklyn is especially reflective of this need, as it illustrates the split between those who choose to hold on to their Irish selves in their entirety and those who adopt some aspects of their Irishness to be able to thrive. This split is evident in the lidgers of Ms Kehoe’s - Sheila Heffernen, Miss Keegan and Miss McAdam are representative of stagnation and a refusal to accept change, while Eilis eventually adapts and finds belonging in Brooklyn. Sheila is unable to let go of xenophobia, as she “sniffs when they passed anyone in the street who she thought was Italian or Jewish”, while Eilis is more readily accepting of progressive social values and “loves” how the “Italian ladies” do her washing. Likewise, she is able to embrace social progression, planning to move to Long Island with Tony, while Sheila fears the prospect, saying with trepidation that “it might be Long Island for us all”. While Eilis anchors herself in Brooklyn through her relationship with Miss Keegan saying that “it was not really Christmas if she wasn’t in her own home in Ireland in her own home in Ireland and she was going to be sad all day”. Father Flood’s parish is also reflective of the reinvention of the Irish cultural identity that occurs in ‘Brooklyn’. Life in Brooklyn “centers around the parish, even more than in Ireland” due to Father Flood’s readiness to act as social facilitator to his parish, in contrast to the rigidity of ritual in which church is bound in Enniscorthy. He is a priest who “loves breaking all the rules”, and his parish Christmas dinner welcomes “anyone, irrespective of creed or country” in stark contrast to the exclusivity which is second-nature in Miss Kelly’s Enniscorthy shop plays both Ceili and modern tunes, further highlighting the hybrid Irish-Americaness that emerges in the migrant community. Therefore, Toibin posits tat reinvention and accepting of change is necessary for survival and improvement, especially in the context of the migrant experience.
Enniscorthy limits agency
1) The confines of Enniscorthy, a town bound in strict class structures and conservative attitudes, envelop Eilis in a web of debilitating fears that prevent her from taking agency in her life.
i. Her fear of the judgement of others bars Eilis from communicating her own wishes, crippling her in insecurity. This fear stems from role of women at the time, as well as her role of ‘second sister’
Employment at Miss Kelly’s
- ‘Go home now like a good girl’
- Eilis realized that she could not turn down the offer
Tacit agreement to go to America
- It was somehow tacitly arranged that she would go to America
- Eilis felt like a child when the doctor would come to the house
ii.
Fear of breaking societal conventions (likes cocoons) – stems from Irish small-town mentality (the importance of performance and class) - Until now, Eilis had always presumed that she would live in the town all her life, as her mother had done, knowing everyone, having the same friends and neighbours, the same routines in the same streets. She had expected that she would find a job in the town, and then marry someone and give up the job and have children. - she would be happier if it (the suitcase) was opened by another person.. she would prefer to stay home… arrangements would be better for someone else, someone like her, as long as she could wake in this bed every morning
America is freeing
1) As Eilis embarks on her journey towards America, leaving behind the cocoon of Enniscorthy, she begins to break out of her fear.
* Takes on personas of others to dissipate fear*
- She found herself thanking him in a tone that Rose might have used, a tone warm and private but also slightly distant though not shy either, a tone used by a woman in full possession of herself. It was something she could not have done in the town or in a place where any of her family or friends might have seen her.
- (attempting to separate from Kehoe) Eilis stood up straight, attempting to make herself taller and stared coldly at Mrs Kehoe... her last remark carried with it the firm idea that she and Eilis stood apart from the other lodgers.. this was a piece of gross assumption… ‘It’s always better to be honest’ she said, imitating Rose when rose found her dignity or sense of proprietry challenged in any way.. she looked at Kehoe not flinching
* Able to manipulate others*
- “Some people are nice,” she said, “and if you talk to them properly, they can be even nicer.” They both laughed. “That’ll be my motto in America,” Eilis said
. - (after confessing homesickness) She felt almost strong as she contemplated what had just happened. No matter who came into the room now, she would be able to elicit their sympathy
Eilis has self-awareness but is emotionally reperssed
sometimes she actually believed that she was loooking forward to thinking about home, when it come to her with a jolt that, no, the feeling she had was only about Friday night and being collected from the house by a man she had met
- She knew that she was being watched and commented on by people from the town, especially when the tempo of the music was fast and it was clear that she and Jim were good dancers, but also later, when the lights went down and the music was slow and they danced close to each other.
Toibin deliberately uses a pared-back style of prose which, paired with his use of third person limited perspective, reflects Eilis’ character in its lack of superfluity and simplicity of expression. The writing style and perspective provide a direct, unadorned view of Eilis’ thoughts, immersing the reader in her perception of the world, which in turn colours the prose with her reservedness, anxiousness and constant, almost subconscious, noting of others’ actions and feelings. This allows Toibin to show Eilis’ passive acceptance of the situations others impose on her, shown in her absence of emotional reaction to events such as being hired by Miss Kelly or her family arranging that she should go to America – instead, she thinks of her mother and Rose’s reactions. After being hired by Miss Kelly, she immediately starts considering what her mother and Rose would think (‘she knew that her mother would be happy… but that Rose would thinking working behind the counter of a grocery shop was not good enough for her’) instead of looking at her own feelings towards the situation. Through his simple prose, reflective of Eilis’ way of thinking, Toibin reveals her lack of agency and dependence on the guidance and opinions of others.
“ALMOST” = can’t allow herself to fully feel things
Modern life/America as a catalyst and balm
The modernity of life in Brooklyn provides both a partial catalyst and eventual alleviation of the loneliness and isolation that afflicts Eilis.
Brooklyn is a metropolis in which individuals mean little, in contrast to the insularity of Enniscorthy; this brings on Eilis’ sense of isolation
- -* rushes of colour or crowds of people, everything frenzied and fast.
- There were crowds in the streets and she could not easily get past people. She wondered at one point if people were not deliberately blocking her way.
- “struggle with the unfamiliar”
- However, it is the conditions of this modern, metropolitan culture that help Eilis recover*
- Miss Fortini helps her get through it because she is important to the business
But you cannot work here if you’re sad. And of course you’re sad if you’re not with your mother for the first time in your life. But the sadness won’t last so we’ll do what we can for you.”
- Able to meet Tony due to the multi-ethnic nature of the community, this grounds her in Brooklyn
- “I don’t know, but bad because if I had gone to an Italian dance I wouldn’t be walking you home now.”
- Able to go to night classes and acquire qualifications
She had never felt like this before in Brooklyn. The letter had lifted her spirits, given her a new freedom, she realized, and it was something she had not expected.
Loneliness stems from Enniscorthy as self-formation
Eilis’ identity and sense of belonging is defined by Enniscorthy – from this stems part of her loneliness and isolation, as she is unable to connect with Brooklyn while she holds onto her Irish identity.
- Defines herself by what other people (mother and Rose think)*
- Miss Kelly turned and began to walk slowly up the stairs. Eilis knew as she made her way home that her mother would indeed be happy that she had found some way of making money of her own, but that Rose would think working behind the counter of a grocery shop was not good enough for her. She wondered if Rose would say this to her directly.
- She has a history in Enniscorthy (church, market square)*
- -* The rooms in the house on Friary Street belonged to her, she thought; when she moved in them she was really there. In the town, if she walked to the shop or to the Vocational School, the air, the light, the ground, it was all solid and part of her, even if she met no one familiar.
- In Brooklyn, she must lose her Enniscorthy identity to be able to belong*
Ghost, tomb, like when they shut the lid on father’s coffin
Emptying foreshadows
She would look carefully at what other women at the dance were wearing and make sure next time that she did not look too plain… Her dress which Rose had helped her buy also looked terrible
Loneliness stems from repressed emotions
The force with which feelings of isolation and loneliness hit Eilis stems largely from her family’s repressed emotional nature. They are unable and unwilling to work through emotional conflicts, and their suppression of feelings leads to moments where these rise to the surface in violent waves, as occurs with Eilis’ homesickness.
- Avoid discussing emotional conflicts*
- (before departure) house…almost unnaturally happy.. too much talk and laughter… doing everything to hide their feelings
- She did not know if the other two also realized that this was the first time they had laughed at this table since Jack had followed the others to Birmingham. She would have loved to say something about him, but she knew that it would make her mother too sad. Even when a letter came from him it was passed around in silence
- she remembered how much the neighbours dreaded the day when the court sat… sometimes the court ordered children to be taken into care.. but her dream had no screaming women, just a group of silent children, Eilis among them, standing in a line, knowing that they would soon be led away on the orders of the judge.. She had felt no fear of it. Her fear, instead, was of seeing her mother in front of the courthouse. IN her dream she found a way of avoiding her mother.
- This leads to these emotions appearing in unpredictable moments and in violent intensity*
- “Oh, it’ll kill me when she goes,” her mother said. Her face wore a dark strained look that Eilis had not seen since the months after their father died. Then, in the moments that followed, the neighbour appearing to have been taken aback by her mother’s tone, her mother’s expression became almost darker and she had to stand up and walk quietly out of the room. It was clear to Eilis that she was going to cry. Eilis was so surprised that, instead of following her mother into the hallway or the dining room, she made small talk with their neighbour, hoping her mother would soon return and they could resume what had seemed like an ordinary conversation.
- Eilis’ homesickness arises suddenly*
She lay on the bed with the letters beside her. For the past few weeks, she realized, she had not really thought of home. The town had come to her in flashing pictures, such as the one that had come during the afternoon of the sale, and she had thought of course of her mother and Rose, but her own life in Enniscorthy, the life she had lost and would never have again, she had kept out of her mind
Regret as powerful emotion
- Eilis homesickness -*
- (homesickness) was like how she felt when her father did and she watched them closing the coffin
- She was nobody here.. she was a ghost in this room… nothing meant anything.. nothing here was part of her. It was false, empty.. It was as though she had been locked away
- she found that she could, if she did not stop herself, move easily into a sort of trance,thinking over and over of the same things, about everything she had lost, and wondering how she would face going back to the evening meal… The evening meal was not as difficult as she had imagined, as both Patty and Diana had bought new shoes.
- tomb of a bedroom… She hated this house, she thought, its smells, its noises, its colours… That night was the worst she had ever slept… the boat trip seemed like years ago.. It was like hell.. could see no end to it... It was like the arrival of night if you knew that you would never see anything in daylight again… Jack was too far away to be able to help her… She had lost all of them
- Miss Keegan - - Galway - - never spoke much unless the talk turned to Fianna Fail or de Valera, or the American political system
- Miss Keegan said that it was not really Christmas if you were not in your own house in Ireland, and she was going to be sad all day and there was no point in pretending that she wouldn’t be
- Regret of death of father, loss of brothers – hangs over daily interaction*
- She did not know if the other two also realized that this was the first time they had laughed at this table since Jack had followed the others to Birmingham. She would have loved to say something about him, but she knew that it would make her mother too sad. Even when a letter came from him it was passed around in silence
Regret as shaping of identity
- Regrets discussing emotions = pain, fuels her fear of conflict
- She wondered if she had not taken the job in the shop and had not told them about her weekly humiliation at Miss Kelly’s hands, might they have been so ready to let this conversation happen. She regretted having told them so much; she had done so mostly because it had made Rose and her mother laugh, brightened a number of meals that they had had with each other, made eating together nicer and easier than anytime since her father had died and the boys had left.
She had made a point of not introducing him to any of them at the dance and now regretted, as the conversation began, that she had said anything at all about him.
- Eilis feels like she can never truly belong anywhere
She was glad she did not have to write now from her bedroom, which seemed empty of life, which almost frightened her in how little it meant to her. She had put no thought into what it would be like to come home because she had expected that it would be easy; she had longed so much for the familiarity of these rooms that she had presumed she would be happy and relieved to step back into them, but, instead, on this first morning, all she could do was count the days before she went back.
- it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything.
in its tone, made clear to him what had really happened and made plain to him also that she belonged somewhere else, a place that he could never know.
- Resulting fear of conflict
- (mother telling her Rose’s job offered to her) had a smile of satisfaction on her face and this came as a relief to Eilis, who had begun to dread the silences between them and resent her mother’s lack of interest in discussing anything, any single detail, about her time in America… felt, for the first time, less uneasy about being home - -
- She wished she could go downstairs now and tell her mother what she had done, but she knew she would not. As she lay in bed she thought it would be wise to make the best of it, take no big decisions in what would be an interlude. A chance to be at home like this would be unlikely to come her way again ever.
- Her fear, instead, was of seeing her mother in front of the courthouse. In her dream she found a way of avoiding her mother.
Fear is the most powerful motivational force
- Fear of conflict + breaking societal conventions motivates most of her life choices*
- Tacit agreement to go to America
- Tacit agreement to get married “pulled him close and smiled”
- Doesn’t tell Tony/Jim at the end “there would never be a time to tell him. She would have to go back”
- But the prospect of telling her mother the date of her departure and the prospect of saying goodbye to Jim Farrell still filled her with fear, enough for her once more to put both ideas out of her mind. She would think about them soon, she thought, but not now.
- Old generation in society - Fear of the new + breaking conventions of their old society -*
- ‘If I am still here. It might be Long Island for us all’ Miss McAdam
- ‘I think we have to be very careful about men we don’t know coming into the hall’
- “saloon bars”
- ‘I’d say in that store, you could get all sorts of germs’
- New generation in society - Fear of non-conformity to the cultural ideal*
- “I read somewhere,” Mrs. Kehoe said, “that they could ruin your eyes.” - “Oh, I don’t care,” Diana said. “I think they’re gorgeous.” - “And I read,” Patty said, “that if you don’t have them this year on the beach people will talk about you.”
- Miss Fortini also insisted that she should lose more weight and brought in a small pink-coloured razor for her and told her that she need not return it. Despite all this preparation, Eilis was nervous about taking off her clothes and appearing in her swimsuit in front of Tony; her efforts to pretend that it was nothing made her even more embarrassed. She wondered if he would notice that she had shaved and she felt she was too white and that her thighs and her bottom were too fat.
Identity is shaped by environment
Para 1- Toibin shows the extent to which the environment shapes the individual and their choices.
Eiilis’ set of morals is fluid and shaped by her need to avoid conflict and disappointing others – she does not have genuine integrity
- Jim did the same, and Eilis found that, when he caught her, he held her in an embrace that was almost too close and he did this as though it was something they were used to doing. She shivered for a second at the thought of Tony seeing her now.
- She smiled at the thought that she would go along with most of it. She was on her holidays and it was harmless, but she would not go into the sea with him as though she were his girlfriend. She would, she reasoned, like to be able to face Tony knowing that she had not done that.
- Quietly, he spoke: “Will we go and try the water?” Eilis was waiting for this and had already planned to say no. But his tone, when he spoke, was unexpected in its humility. Jim spoke like someone who could be easily hurt. She realized that, if she refused, he might walk alone down to the water like someone defeated; somehow she did not want to have to witness that.
- rejection of Dolores shows lack of integrity
- (Dolores) She was clenching her fists in pure irritation each time her companion spoke.. “ditching of Dolores meant everyone was speaking to her again”
Identity adapts
Toibin’s novel is not only one of growth, but of adaptation to different environments. This is partially why Eilis can only grow and change in some respects – she is able to sacrifice parts, not the whole, of her Enniscorthy self in favour of Brooklyn values. This same adaptation can be seen on a generational level, as the Irish community in Brooklyn adapts to encompass American values, while maintaining an essential Irish identity.
Rejection of Irish self while in Broklyn
- (Patty shows Eilis how to put on eye makeup in parish hall dance bathroom, put her hair up for her) ‘Now you look like a ballet dancer…. Well, at least you don’t look like you’ve just come in from milking the cows any more’ (had same perception of Dolores “looked like a horse-dealer’s wife in Enniscorthy on a fair day”)
- She would look carefully at what other women at the dance were wearing and make sure next time that she did not look too plain… Her dress which Rose had helped her buy also looked terrible
- poured some of the perfume that Rose had given her on the parts on the floor and the blankets where she had vomited
Contrast with other lodgers Adaptation of Irish in Brooklyn (Father Flood)
Core self remains unchanged
Toibin show the ways in which individuals are comprised of a core as well as a surface self - while the surface self may shift and adapt, the core is shown to remain largely the same. Eilis, according to Nancy, changes “not for those who know [her], but for people in the town who only know [her] to see”, suggesting that something deeper remains unchanged despite her new-found confidence and glamour. This element is Eilis’ continued fear of conflict, which drives her decisions hroughout and at the end of the novel. Her move to America is “tacitly agreed” upon, as is her marriage, due to her fear of making her own wished clear and risking confrontation. She admits that “Tony was moving faster than she was”, yet cannot bear ot hurt him by telling him she would think about his proposal, and instead chooses to say nothing, “drawing him close”. A similar passivity is the motivational force behind her relationship with Jim, as they first become close when Eilis follows him into the water “not wanting to witness” seeeing him walking in defeated and alone. Likewise, her final decision to return to America is prompted by her realisation that she cannot bear to tell Jim the truth - “there would never be a time to tell him” - and her unwillingness to stand up to Miss Kelly’s taunts. Therefore, Eilis’ decisions continu to be shaped by her fear of conflict with other, relfecting the fact that the core self of individuals remains unchanged.
Adaptation and reinvention are shown by Toibin to ultimately occur on a surface level, as the core self remains unchanged. He suggests that although individuals may grow and change within the confines of their environment, they can never transcend those confines to achieve a profound internal change. This is reflected through Eilis and the women of ‘Brooklyn’, who grow within a narrow niche but continue to be constricted on a broader level. Despite Eilis’ growth in confidence and self-posession, she changes “not for those who know her, but for people who only know her in the town to see”. She maintains her fear of conflict and her choices therefore continue to be made by others. Her realisation that “there would never be a time to tell [Tony]” about her tryst with Jim is what prompts the decision that “she would have to go back”, showing the fact that Eilis’ continued fear of confrontation is the primary motivating force in her life. Likewise, Elis feels constricted to the role of mother despite gaining some independence through her qualifications. Her belief that “she would stay home and do the cooking and cleaning” is reflective of the broader role consigned to women and the time, even while some outward gains in equality are being made. The female ‘self’ is able to gain more power in the role of shopkeeper, as reflected in the power Miss Kelly and Miss Bartocci have, but she remains powerful only in the domestic and retail sphere and is still dominated by men. Mr Bartocci and Rose’s employer Mr Brown continue to be those who “supervise everything [themselves]”, showing that a core change in role and self is elusive while individuals continue to be constrained by society.
America = shifting women’s role
Para 2 - The society of ‘Brooklyn’ is one where the conventional expectations of a woman’s role are expanding and shifting, allowing women to gain power in some spheres.
- very few women in her accountancy class
- (after passing all exams) began to observe how beautiful everything was.. She had never felt like this before in Brooklyn… The letter had given her a new freedom, she realized, and it was something she had not expected... In a year the weather would grow hotter and unbearable… And winter too would dissolve into spring and early summer with long sunny evenings after work until she would again, she hoped, get a letter from Brooklyn College…
- (FF finding out about sex) If he did not raise the subject, she thought, she could talk about her mother and maybe even discuss the possibility of moving into the office at Bartocci’s
- embracing of sexual capital; starts using her sexuality*
Eilis’s costume, which she had bought in Arnotts in Dublin, had had to be altered, as the skirt and the sleeves were too long. It was bright red and with it she was wearing a white cotton blouse with accessories she had brought from America–stockings with a tinge of red, red shoes, a red hat and a white handbag. Her mother was going to wear a grey tweed suit that she had bought in Switzers (She watched Rose crossing the street from sunlight into shade, carrying the new leather handbag that she had bought in Clerys in Dublin in the sale. )
- “match your new American figure” She noticed a woman studying her dress and her stockings and her shoes and then her tanned skin, and she realized with amusement as she moved towards Nancy’s house that she must look glamorous in these streets.
- As the rhythms grew slower, she was surprised at how close some of them danced; some of the women seemed almost wrapped around their partners. She saw Diana and Patty move with confidence and skill and noticed that Diana shut her eyes as she came close to her fellow lodgers, as though she meant to concentrate better on the music and the tall man with whom she was dancing and the pleasure she was taking in the night. Instead, she determined that she would buy something, even just new shoes, which would make her feel more like the girls she had seen dancing.
- Miss Kelly, Miss Bartocci, Miss Fortini, Rose – examples of dominating women, some of whom EIlis imitates
- shopkeepers have a lot of power in community
- family “dependent” on Rose
- Eilis filling roles of these women as a way of expanding horizons
Women constrictedon broader level
Para 3 - Toibin depicts a society where women are powerful within a narrow niche, but are constricted on a broader level.
- She knew that once she and Tony were married she would stay at home, cleaning the house and preparing food and shopping and then having children and looking after them as well. She had never mentioned to Tony that she would like to keep working
- (tony family visit) she explained that when she finished she would be a bookeeper… As Eilis and Tony’s mother discussed this, none of the boys spoke or looked up from their food.
- She had expected that she would find a job in the town, and then marry someone and give up the job and have children.
- Women dominate in the domestic/retail sphere, but men are still the ones with the most power*
- Mr. Bartocci always keeps it a secret. He supervises all the work himself overnight.
- Mr. Bartocci walked through the crowd taking the cash bags and emptying them into a huge canvas sack that he carried.
(Mr Rosenblum) - seemed so full of knowledge… that it was impossible to imagine him with a wife or children
Father Flood is facilitator for Eilis and Irish community in Brooklyn
Idealise what we can’t have
Para 1 – lack of adaptation of Irish migrants (refuse to let go of the home in their mind), idealise what we can’t have
- no one who went to America missed home. Instead, they were happy there and proud
- Looking at letter from Fortini: handwriting clear and beautiful, notepaper itself.. seemed heavier and more expensive, more promising that anything of its kind she had seen before
- ‘Fifth Avenue is the most heavenly place’ Patty
Reinvention is shown by Toibin to be a necessity for survival and personal growth. The Irish migrant community in Brooklyn is especially reflective of this need, as it illustrates the split between those who choose to hold on to their Irish selves in their entirety and those who adopt some aspects of their Irishness to be able to thrive. This split is evident in the lidgers of Ms Kehoe’s - Sheila Heffernen, Miss Keegan and Miss McAdam are representative of stagnation and a refusal to accept change, while Eilis eventually adapts and finds belonging in Brooklyn. While Eilis anchors herself in Brooklyn through her relationship with Miss Keegan saying that “it was not really Christmas if she wasn’t in her own home in Ireland in her own home in Ireland and she was going to be sad all day”.
