“The Boarding House” and the Trappings of Expectations
Dublin is such a small city - everyone knows everyone else’s business.
“The Boarding House” seems to concern itself with marriage; Joyce tends to view marriage as being a trap created by certain social expectations, and this is evident in the story. Mrs. Mooney wants her daughter to marry. She allows Polly to flirt with the young men in the house and does not regulate any of her activity. Joyce writes, “There had been no open complicity between mother and daughter, no open understanding but, though people in the house began to talk of the affair, still Mrs. Mooney did not intervene.” When Mrs. Mooney “discovers” Polly engaging in more than casual flirting with Mr. Doran, she still does not intervene until “she judged it to be the right moment.” Her timing, along with the statement, “She was sure she would win,” makes clear that Mrs. Mooney intentionally allowed her daughter to be put in a morally questionable dilemma from which marriage would almost have to occur. This might lead one to believe that her daughter is pregnant, for it is interesting that she is so eager to find a husband for Polly considering how her first marriage ended. Perhaps Mrs. Mooney traps Mr. Doran in a marriage because she assumes the worst has happened and wishes to preserve her daughter’s honor.
Mr. Doran is forced to make a decision based on two conflicting expectations - namely, those that come from the norms of a society versus the morals taught by one’s religious upbringing. He occupied a higher social status than Polly, who is only 19, so it would be frowned upon, socially speaking, to agree to marry her. Doran even worries that his “family would look down on her,” and he resents the idea that “he was being had.” However, he had willingly kindled a relationship with her, and if she was pregnant, marriage would be expected - perhaps even commanded, religiously speaking. Doran’s Priest for instance “so magnified his sin that he was thankful at being afforded a loophole of reparation.” This is a no-win situation for Mr. Doran, as he can either marry her or flee such expectations. This situation causes the recurring experience of paralysis - a common theme of Dubliners. Paralysis shows up in “Boarding House” because Mr. Doran cannot make the decision. On one hand, he has such vivid beautiful memories of her treating him well, but at the same time he knows how bad this would look for him. Joyce describes his final descent down the Boarding House stairs when he writes, “He longed to ascend through the roof and fly away to another country where he would never hear again of his trouble and yet a force pushed him downstairs step by step.”
“The Boarding House” could be compared to the relationship between Ireland and Britain. Mrs. Mooney may symbolize Britain, while Polly stands for Ireland. Polly like Ireland is monitored by a superior; however, Mrs. Mooney allows Polly to have some sense of free will until intervention is necessary.
Questions:
Do you agree that Mrs. Mooney intended to put Mr. Doran in such a predicament? If so, what were her motivations?
Is this Joyce’s view of marriage? Is he using his publishings to make a mockery of accepted social and political norms of Ireland?
Compared to other characters of Dubliners, is Mr. Doran’s and Polly’s “love” closer to Eros in some way? Or is it yet another particular copy that is far removed from the true form?
I think both Polly and Doran represent the modern Irish experience. With this in mind, yes, one could read Mrs. Mooney as the embodiment of Britain - the ever-watchful madam continually contriving inconvenient marriages of religious, class, and/or cultural differences. Nice posting guys!
ReplyDeleteI think Mrs. Mooney always intended to marry her daughter off to one of her clients, it just happened to be Mr. Doran. Her nickname, "The Madam", as well as the narrator's use of the word "business" when stating, "Polly, of course flirted with the young men but Mrs. Mooney… knew that the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant business" implies that Mrs. Mooney is perfectly willing to profit off of Polly. Mrs. Mooney likes to gamble and her daughter is her ante. However, she does not just want money; she even refuses to "patch up the affair for a sum of money" and instead goes for the jackpot, the marriage of her daughter into a higher social class.
ReplyDeleteMaren
I disagree with your take on the quote "Polly, of course flirted with the young men but Mrs. Mooney… knew that the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant business," when you said that the quote implied that Mrs. Mooney is perfectly willing to profit off of Polly. I think that the quote implies that the young men were looking for a casual relationship, and not the seriousness of marriage . I don't think that this is enough evidence to say that Mrs. Mooney is trying to profit off of her daughter's marriage and it was not uncommon for a mother to play matchmaker, similarly to Mrs. Mooney, in order to find a suitable husband for her daughter.
DeleteI am interested in how Joyce uses the young characters to demonstrate affection, and the older characters as a barrier to it. In Araby, we have a boy who wants to impress a girl, but he must wait all day for his less excited father to return home. In this story, Polly falls for a man, if not emotionally than at least sexually, but it is her mother who brings reality back around. Polly just wants Mr. Doran, but Mrs. Mooney wants a marriage-- the adult figure once again altering the path of Eros
ReplyDeleteVery intriguing! I had not thought of this love barrier being personified by the elder characters. The paralysis within the Araby child, Mr. Doran, and perhaps Eveline, regarding their love interests are all inflicted one way or another by an older figure. As we read more stories and Joyce's protagonists move through adolescence into adulthood, they begin to spoil their own attempts at romance. These examples vary: be it James Duffy's self-stifled connection with Mrs Sinico, or Farrington's lack of courage to approach the woman from London in the pub.
DeleteI do think that Mr. Doran and Polly have some love between them, but perhaps I am just being naïve. In my opinion, after Araby, it is the closest to love, and certainly the closest between two adults. However, Mrs. Mooney's attitude towards their affair certainly dilutes their eros - she sees it as a means of getting rid of her daughter. It is further ruined by Mr. Doran's concerns about social class and losing his job - showing once again that the society of Dublin will always dilute love in some way.
ReplyDeleteDan C.
Interesting. There does seem to be some sort of love between Doran and Polly, but it seems insufficient to overcome Doran's doubts about the marriage. Polly's perspective further confuses me about how real their love is, as for her it exists more as a day dream than a real emotion.
DeleteI think that there is some truth to this day dream theory, but think that there is some emotional connection between the two characters; though whether it is 'love' I can't say.
DeleteAs we see in the case of Mrs. Mooney yanking her daughter home once she becomes the object of affection to the 'sheriff's man', she never lets Polly experience a relationship that goes any deeper than flirting. When it finally happens with Mr. Doran, I think that Polly isn't sure how to handle it. I feel like she has dreamed of having a deeper, more emotion-based relationship, but now that she has one she isn't sure how to differentiate between a past daydream and what is occurring in reality.