Michael Hagerup

A Journey

English assignment 4/11 2011:

A journey. A travel from one destination to another. Undergoing a difficult process of personal change and development. Both sides are depicted in Colm Tibins short story A Journey from 2006. The story revolves around a mother and a child and it depicts how deep chasms in lifes key relationships can be. Neglect, depression, life and death and looking back upon it all are some of the key themes that this essay will deal with. The mother, whose name is Mary, is the main character and it is her thoughts the narrator gives us insight to. The narrator is therefore a third person narrator limited to the mother. The geographical setting remains unclear from the start of the story until it ends: We are never given any sign of a specific place in the world. What we do know, however, is that the story starts with a flashback to Davids childhood. The flashback begins In Medias Res: Mammy, how do people die? he had asked, and Mary had explained how the soul left the body and then God well, God took your soul because he loves you (l. 1). This is the only flashback of the story although there are other points at which the mother looks back on her life and the choices she has made over the years. One could argument for the case that the mothers quick glances at the past were also flashbacks, but then they should have been narrated from a different point of view, not explicitly being narrated as Mary looking back on her life, but as Mary being in that time of her life as the story is being narrated. The first 21 lines are written in the preterite tense and therefore make up the only literary flashback of the story. Lines as The road had been widened for stretches and the car lights beamed on wooden fences instead of the old ditches. (l. 24) are simply referred to as glances at the past hence they are written in the pluperfect. The flashback gives us plenty to interpret on the story but we will return to that later. It introduces the storys third character, Mrs. Redmond who looked after David when he was a child. At the point where we have reached the main story she looks after Marys husband who is paralyzed in his right side and needs help to almost everything. After the flashback time and setting change and we are now told the main story wherein David and his mother are on their way home from the hospital. David has been hospitalized because of what the doctor calls a depression. Silence is Marys word for it but it is clear that it is a mystery to Mary what is actually wrong with her boy. Naming the state of her son Silence may be a way of repressing the fact that her son is not normal or that he is suffering from something out of her control. She wonders what has caused the state he is in and if she had played any part in how the events has unfurled:

Michael Hagerup

A Journey

Where they to blame, she and Seamus, and in what way, for the fact that their twenty-year-old son whom she was driving home from hospital. (Line 30) The reader is given several clues to what has actually caused Davids depression or the apathy with which he is going through his adolescence. Mary and Seamus have obviously not been there for him through his childhood. The opening lines give a hint of an inadequate relationship between mother and son. Mary feels amused by Davids persistent questions about life and death but tries to answer him as seriously as possible even though she finds it hard. It is hinted that she has been like this through Davids entire life, which must have caused David to feel alone and confused. One sentence is remarkable in particular: David did not really make the great change in their lives that she expected. (l. 13). Mary and Seamus have continued their life just as if they had not had David. They did not take full responsibility for their parenthood and the bringing up of their newborn son. David became attached to the nearby-living Mrs. Redmond who came by to babysit every time Mary or Seamus would want to leave the house. It is described that David did not even like to go home from Cottage sometimes. David must have had a difficult childhood. Mary has not been there for David that fact is clear from the opening lines and Davids question to her. Seamus has not been there for him either and this must have caused a great lack of a role model and the old Mrs. Redmond has not been able to fill up that gap by herself. David has had a difficult upbringing and this may have something to do with his difficult adolescent behavior. There are many signs that Mary does not want to realize the situation she is in (as mentioned: Her rephrasing of the word depression into the word silence) but it is also clear that she does not know her son very well. Through the entire ride from the hospital to their home Mary keeps trying to speak with David even though he made it clear several times that he does not want to speak with her. That is of course natural to a mum but the sentence at line 35 gives her away: She wondered if he had made a decision not to speak to her, or if this was natural for him, if the silence made him comfortable, as it made her uneasy and weary. A mum should know her son as good as she knows herself and at least have a little clue of what is going on inside of her childs head. She tries to bring up casual topics to talk about and acts like everything is perfectly normal but David rejects her at every attempt she makes. Instead of realizing the serious issues in her family she lives in an imaginary world where everything is almost as normal as usual. She is not marked by the situation and even throws out a laugh with youthful exuberance at line 79. Mary is the only one left in the family with good health but she does not take responsibility for the serious issues her family is facing nor does she try to save her family from despair. Mary has a tense relationship to his son. The communication between the two indicates this several times as Mary desperately tries to start a standard conversation and David turns her down. He had another stroke last week she said, but it sounded false and untrue as if she had invented it merely to shock him into speaking to her. But he did not speak; (l. 43) At line 65 she also

Michael Hagerup

A Journey

dramatically pulls the car over to ask David some more serious questions about his future life but she does not get any response here either. But as Mary and David journeys to their home they get closer and closer to breaking the ice just a little. Davids first actual response comes at line 98 with the comment it was lousy and his first question at line 126: Is he in bed all the time? He suddenly asked her.. So, the relationship between mother and son goes through a journey, but also Mary does. Mary may have lived in a romantic dream world dreaming about an everlasting life in the big cottage that her father bought for her and Seamus but on the drive home she goes through a certain development. Marys mood seems odd if one takes a closer look on her past and her present situation. She has had a tough life: She lost both her parents, her mother committed suicide and her father has depicted his grief on a revealing painting which hung in the musty parlour over his shop. In her present situation she has to deal with both a depressive son and a paralyzed husband. Indeed Life has not gone easy on Mary and on her journey home from the hospital she reflects over the past and the choices she has made and if they were the right ones to make (For example selling her fathers shop). But Mary throws it all away with her persistently denying happiness. All she does is smile at the thought of having two depressive zombies as company when David has been brought home (line 84) and she does not seem very affected by the saddening situation at all. As Mary comes closer and closer to her home and to Seamus she comes closer and closer to realizing the issues she has to deal with. The journey finally ends when Mary walks upstairs to Seamus bedroom and the final revelation comes with the line Seamus was staring at her from the bed and when their eyes caught she was struck for moment by a glimpse of a future in which she would need to muster every ounce of selfishness she had. The eye contacts she makes with both David and Seamus are symbols of the presence that the family needs to show to each other and this is what finally makes her realize her responsibility towards her family.

Life is all about accepting the choices we have made and the consequences they have had. We are forced to take responsibility for the choices we make because there is not other thing to do. There is nothing in life but the consequences of our choices. Colm Tibins short story depicts a journey home from a hospital, a journey from one state to another a development. A woman living in self-denial without realizing the misery in her life has finally chosen to let the grey hair appear. Mary journeys home and she journeys through self-assessment to the final conclusion that she needs to step out of her fantasy-world and let the grey hair appear. Mary needs to be the wife and the mother she always have had to be.