4 The boarding house

J.Joyce

Mrs Mooney was a butcher’s daughter. She was a woman who was quite able to keep things to herself: a determined woman. She had married her father’s foreman and opened a butcher’s shop near Spring Gardens. But as soon as his father-in-law was dead Mr. Mooney began to go to the devil. He drank, plundered the till, ran head-long into debt. It was no use making him take the pledge: he was sure to break out again a few days after. By fighting his wife in the presence of customers and by buying bad meat he ruined his business. One night he went for his wife with the cleaver and she had to sleep in a neighbour’s house.

After that they lived apart. She went to the priest and got a separation from him with care of the children. She would give him neither money nor food nor house-room; and so he was obliged to enlist himself as a sheriff’s man. He was a shabby stooped little drunkard with a white face and a white moustache and white eyebrows, pencilled above his little eyes, which were pink-veined and raw; and all day long sat in the bailiff’s room, waiting to be put on a job. Mrs Mooney, who had taken what remained of her money out of the butcher business and set up a boarding house in Hardwicke Street, was a big imposing woman. Her house had a floating population made up of tourists from Liverpool and the Isle of Man and, occasionally, artistes from the music halls. Its resident population was made up of clerks from the city. She governed the house cunningly and firmly, knew when to give credit, when to be stern and when to let things pass. All the resident young men spoke of her as The Madam.

Mrs Mooney’s young men paid fifteen shillings a week for board and lodgings (beer or stout at dinner excluded). They shared comon tastes and occupations and for this reason they were very chummy with one another. They discussed with one another the chances of favourites and outsiders. Jack Mooney, the madam’s son, who was a clerk to a commission agent in Fleet Street, had the reputation of being a hard case. He was fond of using soldiers’ obscenities: usually he came home in the small hours. When he met his friends he had always a good one to tell them and he was always sure to be on to a good thing – that is to say, a likely horse or a likely artiste. He was also handy with the mits* and sang comic songs. On Sunday nights there would often be a reunion in Mrs Mooney’s front drawing room. The music-hall artistes would oblige; and Sheridan played waltzes and polkas and vamped accompaniments. Polly Mooney, the Madam’s daughter, would also sing. She sang:

“I’m a ... naughty girl.

You needn’t sham:

You know I am.”

Polly was a slim girl of nineteen; she had light soft hair and a small full mouth. Her eyes, which were grey with a shade of green through them, had a habit of glancing upwards when she spoke with anyone, which made her look like a little perverse madonna. Mrs Mooney had first sent her daughter to be a typist in a corn-factor’s office but, as a disreputable sheriff’s man used to come every day to the office, asking to be allowed to say a word to his daughter, she had taken her daughter home again and set her to do housework. As Polly was very lively the intention was to give her the run of the young men. Besides, young men like to feel that there is a young woman not very far away. Polly, of course, flirted with the young men but Mrs Mooney, who was a shrewd judge, knew that the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant business. Things went on so far a long time and Mrs Mooney began to think of sending Polly back to typewriting when she noticed that something was going on between Polly and one of the young men. She watched the pair and kept her own counsel.

Polly knew that she was being watched, but still her mother’s persistent silence could not be misunderstood. 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. Polly began to grow a little strange in her manner and the young man was evidently perturbed. At last, when she judged it to be the right moment, Mrs Mooney intervened. She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat: and in this case she had made up her mind.

It was a bright Sunday morning of early summer, promising heat, but with a fresh breeze blowing. All the windows of the boarding house were open and the lace curtains ballooned gently towards the street beneath the raised sashes. The belfry of George’s Church sent out constant peals and worshippers, singly or in groups, traversed the little circus before the church, revealing their purpose by their self-contained demeanour no less than by the little volumes in their gloved hands.

Breakfast was over in the boarding house and the little table of the breakfast-room was covered with plates on which lay yellow streaks of eggs with morsels of bacon-fat and bacon-rind. Mrs Mooney sat in the straw arm-chair and watched the servant Mary remove the breakfast things. She made Mary collect the crusts and pieces of broken bread to help to make Tuesday’s bread-pudding.

When the table was cleared, the broken bread collected, the sugar and butter safe under lock and key, she began to reconstruct the interview which she had had the night before with Polly. Things were as she had suspected: she had been frank in her questions and Polly had been frank in her answers. Both had been somewhat awkward, of course. She had been made awkward by her not wishing to receive the news in too a cavalier a fashion or to seem to have connived and Polly had been made awkward not merely because allusions of that kind always made her awkward but also because she did not wish it to be thought that in her wise innocence she had divined the intention behind her mother’s tolerance.

Mrs Mooney glanced instinctively at the little gilt clock on the mantelpiece as soon as she had become aware through her revery that the bells of George’s Church had stopped ringing. It was seventeen minutes past eleven; she would have lots of time to have the matter out with Mr Doran and then catch short twelve at Marlborough Street. She was sure she would win. To begin with she had all the weight of social opinion on her side: she was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour, and he had simply abused her hospitality. He was thirty-four or thirty-five years of age, so that youth could not be pleaded as his excuse since he was a man who had seen something of the world. He had simply taken advantage of Polly’s youth and inexperience: that was evident. The question was: What reparation would he make?

There must be reparation made in such case. It is all very well for the man: he can go his way as if nothing had happened, having had his moment of pleasure, but the girl has to bear the brunt. Some mothers would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money; she had known cases of it. But she would not do so. For her only reparation could make up for the loss of her daughter’s honour: marriage.

She counted all her cards again before sending Mary up to Mr. Doran’s room to say that she wished to speak with him. She felt sure she would win. He was a serious young man, not rakish or loud-voiced like the others. If it had been Mr. Sheridan or Mr. Meade or Bantam Lyons her task would have been much harder. She did not think he woud face publicity. All the lodgers in the house knew something of the affair; details had been invented by some. Besides, he had been employed for thirteen years in a great Catholic wine-merchant’s office and publicity would mean for him, perhaps, the loss of his job. Whereas if he agreed all might be well. She knew he had a good screw for one thing and she suspected he had a bit of stuff put by.

Nearly the half-hour! She stood up and surveyed herself in the pier-glass. The decisive expression of her great florid face satisfied her and she thought of some mothers she knew who could not get their daughters off their hands.

Mr Doran was very anxious indeed this Sunday morning. He had made two attempts to shave but his hand had been so unsteady that he had been obliged to desist. Three days’ reddish beard fringed his jaw and every two or three minutes a mist gathered on his glasses so that he had to take them off and polish them with his pocket-handkerchief. The recollection of his confession of the night before was a cause of acute pain to him; the priest had drawn out every ridiculous detail of the affair and in the end had so magnified his sin that he was almost thankful at being afforded a loophole of reparation.

The harm was done.What could he do now but marry her or run away? He could not brazen it out. The affair would be sure to be talked of and his employer woud be certain to hear of it. Dublin is such a small ity: everyone knows everyone else’s business. He felt his heart leap warmly in his throat as he heard in his excited imagination old Mr Leonard calling out in his rasping voice: “Send Mr Doran here, please.”

All his long years of service gone for nothing! All his industry and diligence thrown away! As a young man he had sown his wild oats, of course; he had boasted of his free-thinking and denied the existence of God to his companions in public-houses. But that was all passed and done with ... nearly. He still bought a copy of Reynold’s Newspaper every week but he attended to his religious duties and for nine-tenths of the year lived a regular life. He had money enough to settle down on; it was not that. But the family would look down on her. First of all there was her disreputable father, and then her mother’s boarding house was beginning to get a certain fame. He had a notion that he was being had. He could imagine his friends talking of the affair and laughing. She was a little vulgar; sometimes she said ‘I seen’ and If I had’ve known.’ But what would grammar matter if he really loved her? He could not make up his mind whether to like her or despise her for what she had done. Of course he had done that it too. His instinct urged him to remain free, not to marry. Once you are married you are done for, it said.

While he was sitting helplessly on the side of the bed in shirt and trousers, she tapped lightly at his door and entered. She told him all, that she had made a clean breast of it to her mother and that her mother would speak with him that moning. She cried and threw her arms round his neck, saying:

‘O Bob! Bob! What am I to do? What am I to do at all?’

She would put an end to herself, she said.

He comforted her feebly, telling her not to cry, that it would be all right, never fear. He felt against his shirt the agitation of her bosom.

It was not altogether his fault that it had happened. He remembered well, with the curious patient memory of the celibate, the first casual caresses her dress, her breath, her fingers had given him. Then late one evening as he was undressing for bed she had tapped at his door, timidly. She wanted to relight her candle at his, for hers had been blown out by a gust. It was her bath night. She wore a loose open combing-jacket of printed flannel. Her white instep shone in the opening of her furry slippers and the blood glowed warmly behind her perfumed skin. From her hands and wrists too as she lit and steadied her candle a faint perfume arouse.

On nights when he came in very late it was she who warmed up his dinner. He scarcely knew what he was eating feeling her beside him alone, at night, in the sleeping house. And her thoughtfulness! If the night was anyway cold or wet or windy there was sure to be a little tumbler of punch ready for him. Perhaps they could be happy together...

They used to go upstairs together on tiptoes, each with a candle, and on the third landing exchange reluctant good-nights. They used to kiss. He remembered well her eyes, the touch of her hand and his delirium....

But delirium passes. He echoed her phrase, applying it to himself: ‘What am I to do?’ The instinct of the celibate warned him to hold back. But the sin was there; even his sense of honour told him that reparation must be made for such a sin.

While he was sitting with her on the side of the bed Mary came to the door and said that the missus wanted to see him in the parlour. He stood up to put on his coat and waistcoat, more helpless that ever. When he was dressed he went over to her to comfort her. It would be all right, never fear. He left her crying on the bed and moaning softly: ‘O my God!’

Going down the stairs his glasses became so dimmed with moisture that he had to take them off and polish them. 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 implacable faces of his employer and of the Madam stared upon his discomfiture. On the last flight of stairs he passed Jack Mooney, who was coming up from the pantry nursing two bottles of Bass. They saluted coldly; and the lover’s eyes rested for a second or two on a thick bulldog face and a pair of thick short arms. When he rached the foot of the staircase he glanced up and saw Jack regarding him from the door or the return-room.

Suddenly he remembered the night when one of the music-hall artistes, a little blond Londoner, had made a rather free allusion to Polly. The reunion had been almost broken up on account of Jack’s violence. Everyone tried to quiet him. The music-hall artiste, a little paler than usual, kept smiling and saying that there was no harm meant; but Jack kept shouting at him that if any fellow tried that sort of a game on with his sister he’d bloody well put his teeth down his throat: so he would.

...................................................................................................................................

Polly sat for a little time on the side of the bed, crying. Then she dried her eyes and went over to the looking-glass. She dipped the end of the towel in the water-jug and refreshed her eyes with the cool water. She looked at herself in profile and readjusted a hairpin above her ear. Then she went back to the bed again and sat at the foot. She regarded the pillows for a long time, and the sight of them awakened in her mind secret, amiable memories. She rested the nape of her neck against the cool iron bedrail and fell into a reverie. There was no longer any perturbation visible on her face.

She waited on patiently, almost cheerfully, without alarm, her memories gradually giving place to hopes and visions of the future. Her hopes and visions were so intricate that she no longer saw the white pillows on which her gaze was fixed, or remembered that she was waiting for anything.

At last she heard her mother calling. She started to her feet and ran to the banisters.

‘Polly! Polly!”

“Yes, mamma?’

‘Come down, dear. Mr. Doran wants to speak to you.’

Then she remembered what she had been waiting for.

NOTES

was also handy with the mits – was a good boxer

went to the priest and got a separation from him – The Catholic Church and Irish State do not recognize divorce, but the Church sanctions separations

artistes – ‘artistes’ were presumed to have more free and easy attitudes

The Madam – this name reflects the lodgers’ view of her as a cunning and firm landlady. The term is also used of the proprietress of a brothel.

“I’m a ... naughty girl.- a song typical of Dublin music-halls of those years. Ironically, Polly shows her nature accurately ad baldly in her song.

Reynold’s Newspaper - a Sunday newspaper that supported the policy of the Labour party

to make reparation - (reparation – making good a wrong or sin, used here in its religious sense rather than its legal one)

good screw... bit of stuff put by (coll) – a good salary and some savings

sheriff’s man – a messenger in the bailiff’s office

pier-glass – a tall wall mirror

GLOSSARY

foreman

to go to the devil

to plunder the till

to run head-long

take the pledge- take an oath to give up drinking

cleaver

an imposing woman

to give credit

were very chummy with

obscenity

to be handy with

perverse

disreputable

complicity

sash

demeanour

bacon-rind

in a cavalier fashion

to connive

to divine the intention

revery/ reverie

to take advantage of

to bear the brunt

to patch up an affair

had sown his wild oats

rakish

to desist

to brazen sth out

rasping voice

diligence

was being had

celibate

implacable

perturbation

COMPREHENSION

1. What do we learn about Mrs. Mooney’s background and past life?

2. The plot of the story consists in entrapping a weak youngish man into marriage which was done by plot or by circumstance. What does each consist in?

3. What does Mrs Mooney mean by ‘the harm was done’?

4. Why was Mr Doran’s anxious that Sunday morning?

5. What thought gave Mrs. Mooney satisfaction as she was looking at herself in the mirror?

ANALYSIS

PLOT STRUCTURE:

1. Find the paragraps offering the premises for the action of “The Boarding House”.

   • What is the effect of alternation of narrative contraction and expansion in the exposition ?

   • What facts are given as glimpses and which are represented as substantially realized episodes?

2. Identify the complication and the climax of the story

3. Find the extended and chronologically detailed flashback viewing the progress of the amorous affair..

4. What facts are given as implications?

SETTING

1. What expressions does Joyce use to characterise Dublin?

2. Pick out all the expressions describing the boarding house. Was it a shabby or a rich house?

3. Pick out all the expressions describing the milieu:

• the owners of the house

• the lodgers

• the atmosphere of the house

4. What is the role of the time setting? What may be the associations of a calm Sunday which begins the week in England?

5. Consider the description of interior and exterior landscape on the Sunday morning (It was a bright Sunday morning ... the little volumes in their gloved hands.) Note how appearances of objects interact to produce an elevated atmosphere and a realm of metaphoric significance.

6. What parallels suggest that the twin forces forces of paralysis in Dublin society are the Church and public opinion? Pick out the same words used by the priest and Mrs Moooney in her thoughts.

NARRATOR

1 Identify the type of the narrator.

2. Does the narrator of the story pass judgement on anyone?

3. Do you feel the narrator’s attitude to any of the characters (is this unbiased or biased narrator)? What reveals it?

CHARACTERS

I. Focus on the character of MRS MOONEY

1. Are there any expressions describing Mrs Mooney’s physical appearance?

2. Consider her past.

a.What does the opening sentence: what does it suggest of Mr Mooney’s social identity and her inherited disposition?

b. Can you say that marriage had been hard on Mrs. Mooney?

c. Pick out from the text sentences proving her character worth her origin. What cruel twists in her affairs are mentioned in the exposition?

d. Was Mrs. Mooney wronged by her husband ( consequently making ‘reparation’ the obverse of ‘separation’) or had she in a way finished him off ( solving all moral problems with the help of a cleaver)?

3) Mrs Mooney’s character is descibed acidly in a series of statements. Pick out the facts and expressions suggesting that she was

brutal

decisive

trenchant in her dealings

frugal

determined

shrewd

quietly calculating

assured

alert

business-minded

meticulous

thrifty

logical

rational

crafty

purposeful

wise

patient

firm

stern

permissive

4) What meanings of the name The Madam are relevant for this story? Does this name characterise her

• as a cunning and firm landlady

• the proprietress of a brothel. (Note the the implication of ‘her mother’s boarding house was beginning to get a certain fame.’)

• an embodiment of maternal power

• a ‘manager’ of a lively attractive daughter?

Pick out from the text expressions characterizing her business qualities as the manager of a boarding-house.Was she able to distinguish between types of people?

Disclose the implication of the simile ‘She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat’

Do you agree that Mrs Mooney is a complex character? (note the juxtaposition of incompatible things in ‘a butcher’s shop’ and ‘Spring Gardens’) Which of her qualities and actions prove:

• the moral finesse of a ‘Madam’?

• the crassness of a butcher’s daughter?

Can you agree that she was that rare remarkable parent who can combine unobtrusive permissiveness with precise concealed purpose

8. What language does Joyce use reporting Mrs. Mooney’s thoughts and why? Find the passage in the text and note the expressions she uses.

9. Taking into consideration Mrs Mooney’s unhappy life experience we can admit that in her thoughts about Doran’s reparation she escapes from moral ambivalence into an impervious and sincere self-justification. Is it human frailty or ultimate hypocrisy?

10. Comment on her abilities to contrive Doran’s surrender.

- What powers does she enlist to conquer Doran?

- Is she correct in her assessment of Doran’s reactions to the combined weight of Irish opinion (The Church, society and employer) bearing down on him?

- What moment does she choose to summon Doran to her presence? Could she expect Doran’s having been to confession the evening before?

- When does she plan her interview with Mr.Doran? What does the view of the churchgoers outside suggest?.

- What does she think of the reaction of Mr.Doran’s Catholic employer of thirteen years?

- Recollect how she aligns herself with the public opinion , rehearsing society’s reactions in her mind.

11. Are her relations with the Church comfortable or hostile? Is her churchgoing mostly social or religious?( ‘...catch short twelve at Marlborough Street’) Don’t you think that she stands for orthodox morality in an ambiguous way?

12. What technique of character presentation does the author use to depict Mrs Mooney? Show, in Joyce’s presentation of Mrs. Mooney, how he influences the reader’s responses.

II. Focus on the character of POLLY

1. What expressions in Joyce’s description of Polly’s appearance contribute to her image of a flirt of the establishment?

2. Pick out the details and expressions suggesting that Polly was

physically seductive

highly manipulative

composed and confident in the outcome of her mother’s interview with Doran.

3. What were Polly’s true feelings for Doran? Did she act like a light-minded flirt or a business-like seductress? Consider

• her actions

• the details of her appearance

3. What proves that Polly was her mother’s daughter? Does she seem to know the rules of her mother’s game ? What attracted her in Mr Doran to have him as a lover? Did she care for him or for her own station in life? What facts or expressions suggest that silent agreement prevails between mother and daughter ? Prove your opinion.

4. What means does the author use to show Polly’s emotions when she came to Doran on the Sunday morning?What state do her actions after his leaving betray?

5. Which adjectives would you choose to characterize Polly:

pragmatic

daydreaming

innocent

wise

flirtatious

other_______________?

3. What techniques does Joyce coose to characterise Polly?

• direct characteristics?

• actions?

• insight into her thoughts and feelings?

• opinions of other characters?

III. Focus on the character of Mr DORAN

1) What is Mr Doran’s attitude to Polly? Prove by the text.

2) What qualities does Mr Doran possess to make him most likely to succumb to Polly’s charms?

- does he realize that he had been deceived?

- what are Doran’s notions of sin, success, respectability?

- what paralysing forces of Dublin society is he imbued with?

2) Pick out the details and jestures creating implications of his anxiety and distress. Is his state revealed directly or indirectly, or both?

3) Which of the following adjectives characterize Doran? Prove your choice.

- nervous

- fidgety

- weak

- innocent

- naive

- god-fearing

- socially conscious

- meek

- submissive

- straight

- intelligent

- conventional

- sensual

- timid

- dicreet

- reputable

- serious

4) What environmental influence formed his character?

- What is similar in the roles the following people pay in Doran’s affair: - his confessor, - his employer, - Polly, - Polly’s mother, - Polly’s brother?

5) The denoument suggests Doran’s succumbing to his fate.Is he going to sacrifice his reputation like a playboy with guts or does his fear make him unable to shirk the punishment? Prove your answer.

6) In what vein does the author portray Mr Doran (serious, comic, sympathetic, ironic, scornful)? Prove by the text. Does the young man’s helplessness evoke your sympathy, pity or contempt?

7) Do you think Doran’s unhappy situation is classic?

CONFLICT

What is the basic conflict? Is it between

• male and female

• man and social establishment

• animalistic and spiritual in man?

THEME

Which of the following phrases could be said to be the theme of the story:

- a way to get your daughter off your hands?

- paralysing force of the social establishment and conventions ?

- the revenge of an outraged female on an evasive male ?

- making the most of human frailty?

- man and woman are unevenly matched?

MESSAGE

1. Young men should be fortified against the devilishness of the world of females.

2. Hipocrisy is not always the simple thing melodrama makes of it, but it is deeper, darker and harder to cope with

3. The weight of an authoritative and encompassing system can reduce a captive to ambivalence, panic and abject submission

4. Other:___________________

LITERARY TECHNIQUES

1.What do the following parallels suggest?

• There were two confessions the night before: Doran made a confession at Church, while Polly had to confess to her mother.

• The priest had Doran thinking in the same words as Mrs Moooney: he must make ‘reparation’ for his ‘sin’.

• Mrs Mooney rehearses her conversation with Doran taking into consideration society’s reactions; Doran rehearses reactions of society represented by his employer, his relatives and friends

• In Doran’s thoughts Mr Leonard, his boss commands authoritatively “Send Mr.Doran here, please”; Mrs Mooney summons him for a real interview.

• Polly’s desperate question ‘What am I to do?’ is applied by Doran to himself.

2. What role does contrast play? What does it emphasize?

- Mrs Mooney’s calm determination and clear mind is contrasted to Doran’s perturbed state and blurred consciousness

- the reposeful procession of the churchgoers outside is contrasted to Doran’s perturbation

3. What is the role of symbol in the story?

- What does “cleaver” symbolize?

- What are the colours of the following: Doran’s three-days’ beard, punch, wine (“wine-merchant”), blood (“the blood glowed warmly behind her perfumed skin”)? Does it seem meaningful in the story?

2. In which line does the epiphany* occur in the story ? Does the epiphany reflect a joyful and optimistic or harsh and pessimistic view of life? Were you surprised by the epiphany or did you find it predictable?

STYLE

1. Is this story fundamentally comic, pathetic or tragic? To what extent is this story humorous?

2. Which of the following adjectives would you choose to describe the style of the story?

Objective

Confessional

Poetic

Scientific

Ironic

other

3. Comment on the interplay of different meanings of the word ‘circus’

4. There is an opinion that the young man’s name (a linking of “do” and “ran”) suggests a possibility of disentangling himself from a ‘hit and run’ affair? Do you agree that the name contains irony?

5. What device can be observed in the expression ‘lover’s eyes’ ? Are Doran’s thoughts those of a lover or he had been forced into the role?

6. What notions are juxtaposed in ‘wise innocence’? What is the stylistic effect of this device?

7. State the type of stylistic device and effect in ‘ thick bulldog’s face’

8. The narrative sometimes takes on a tone of reticent indefinition (e.g. Polly began to grow a little strange in her manner and the young man was evidently perturbed.) What is the stylistic effect of such a tone? Find more examples.

9. What does the tortuosity of the phrase because she did not wish it to be thought that in her wise innocence she had divined the intention behind her mother’s tolerance suggest? Was Polly as simple as she seemed? Were the mother and daughter sincere in their manner?

10. What does the shift from direct to indirect speech in ‘She would put an end to herself, she said.’ suggest?