on the novel by Colm Toibin
by Laura Ionescu
Toibin has used his novel, Brooklyn, as a platform through which he can share his perspectives and insightful views on awakening, realization and new opportunities. Through the relationship between Rose and Eilis, Toibin has enabled himself to express his complex ideas on different though-processes we are guided to undergo throughout our lives depending on changing circumstances and unexpected events. He presents awareness as a trait associated with maturity and responsibility. He acknowledges the difficulty of making the right choices, but at the same time the importance we do make them.
Even though the entirety of the novel focuses around Eilis and her creation of a new life in Brooklyn, when dealing with awareness and maturity, one must acknowledge the importance of Rose in the novel. This character does not only perfectly engage with her role as Eilis’s bigger sister as well as the responsibility and sacrifice that comes alongside it, but she also serves as a catalyst for her sisters’ process of awakening and maturing; even if it is through her death.
Robert Hanks for the Daily Telegraph mentioned that the “American reactions to the Irish immigrant experience can easily tip over into hyperbole…”. This directly draws our attention to the dramatized way Eilis’s life is described in the play. With rarely any moment of peace, Eilis finds herself in a turmoil of emotions, events and life choices, all of which define her latter personality.
From the very beginning of the play, Rose sacrifices herself my encouraging Eilis to leave for America even though she is fully aware that, for the rest of her life, she will be unconditionally tied to her mother and her home, with no hope of a different future as “Eilis’s going […] would mean that Rose was not able to marry”. The way that she chooses Eilis over her own person, Toibin encourages his readers to acknowledge the importance of sacrifice and the awareness that must be formed in order to be able to make such a drastic choice. Because Eilis realizes that “Rose knew all of this too […] either she or Eilis would have to leave” makes the protagonist more aware of her circumstance. It is this that fully wakes up Eilis from her dreams full of worry and dread about what Brooklyn might hold, into the reality that she must make it “worth it”; not for her sake, for Rose’s.
Toibin further explores the concept of awakening by presenting Eilis concern and lack of self-confidence in being the one to move away. As “She wandered if her mother too believed that the wrong sister was leaving”, Toibin attempts to demonstrate to his readers the emotional self-damage that lack of faith in one’s self can induce, as Eilis moves away determined to make the situation successful for her mother and sister and not for her own self. This consistent development of awareness that Eilis undergoes proves that Toibin equates maturity with sacrifice and responsibility with familial concern.
The incorporation of Rose’s death within the novel expands on Toibin’s aim to create a literary work of art to mirror common, relatable life struggles. It also portrays, aside from the mourning and regret, the awakening that results from it for the people impacted by the death. Eilis’s reaction “Eilis said nothing” and questioning “Had she cried […] had she known […] Something, anything” both demonstrate this. Because Eilis goes through such shock because of the death of her sister, she realizes that she has nothing to lose. It is certainly queer; the way Eilis acts after that. She finds potential love in Enniscorthy.
This could indicate towards Toibin’s belief that such a dramatic, emotionally-impactful event can make us realize the simplest of truths. The way she questions her sister’s death – exits her usually neutral self and starts questioning the events that seem to just ‘exist’ in her life – makes us, as readers, realize that it sometimes takes something as impactful as a death, to realize that as big as we may dream – in this case Eilis moving and finding a better job in Brooklyn – upon coming home, we can easily realize that we could have built just-as-lovely of a life as anywhere.
Toibin himself declared that Brooklyn was a story “about self-discovery”; a novel through which Eilis navigates seemingly alone yet accompanied and supported from all sides. Toibin grew up in a home where there was, he said, “a great deal of silence”. This could be mirrored through his writing. As the entirety of the novel is centered around her perception of the world, almost untouched by outside interference, so was, most likely, Toibin’s life.
Because this writing style aids the reader to understand exactly what Eilis is feeling from her own perspective, thus acknowledging her awakening via a fist-hand point of view, Toibin’s personal experience is crucial here and wonderfully imitated onto paper. Tóibín has said his writing comes out of silence. He himself said that, “Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can’t be done abruptly” – it definitely thus come as a surprise when he ends Brooklyn with no clear reference to Eilis future.
In the movie adaptation of the novel, the director John Crowley and the script-writer Nick Hornby had to incorporate these subtle ideas without the aid and vivid descriptions provided by actual written text. Because of this, they had to illustrate all emotions. The extensive use of a variety of lighting in the movie, including grey, dim lighting for Rose’s funeral, add onto the overall emotional impact of the movie. The dark colors associated with Rose’s death and thus, ultimately with Eilis’s awakening, could came through as confusing for the viewer. How can awakening and developing awareness be associated with darkness. However, it is exactly this contrast that perfectly captures the confusion that Eilis’ finds herself in. She has grown to know more about herself yet she mourns her sister’s death through it.
The literary descriptions that Eilis uses to explain Rose’s funeral “Rose lay out now in the dark robes of the dead”, re-iterates the importance of making the right choices. Even though Eilis grows to profoundly regret moving to Brooklyn and not being there to help Rose and potentially-prevent the catastrophe, she is still certain that she has made the right choice. The interesting things to note are both the fact that Eilis has grown so certain of herself over the time she has spent in Brooklyn that she begins to not doubt her journey and life there, and the fact that she was not the one who initially made the decision to move to Brooklyn.
The way that Father Flood and her mother and sister, all encouraged and convinced her this course of actions would benefit her to most, Eilis was still not confinced and had to battle both fear and dread on her journey there. This indicates to the way Toibin wished to present external factors – that are usually out of our control – can solidly define our lives for the better. It is the unexpected choices, and potentially, those that we do not make for ourselves, that awake us to the possibility of a better life; and in this case a better future.
In an interview, Toibin declared the novel to be “illuminating” thus pushing the idea of awakening and awareness further from its pages. After all, the author did not only wish to present the inspiring story of an Irish girl discovering her worth and true potential in “the land of opportunities” (America) but also the life of each and every one of us – capturing the essence of right choices and unexpected circumstances that lead to our awakening.
Written by Laura Ionescu (Editor-in-Chief at hARTS)
hARTS magazine 