A STORY
ENGLISH | THE HERITAGE OF WORDS
CLASS : 12
Dylan Thomas
Mrs. Mooney, separated from her husband, a butcher who descended into alcoholism, runs a boarding house for working men. Her daughter Polly entertains the boarders by singing and flirts with them. Mrs. Mooney learns that her daughter is having an affair with Mr. Doran, a man in his mid-thirties who has worked in a Catholic wine-merchant’s office for many years. Mrs. Mooney bides her time before she intervenes, strongly implying that she is deliberately trying to trap Mr. Doran. After much background, the climax of the story commences on a warm Sunday morning. Mrs. Mooney intends to talk to Mr. Doran and demand that he marry Polly or risk open disclosure. The narration then shifts to Doran’s point-of-view as he nervously contemplates losing his job due to the affair and bemoans the girl’s lower class background and vulgarities of speech. After Polly enters in an agitated state, we learn through Doran’s memories that she initiated the relationship. After Doran leaves the room, Polly seems content, suggesting that she was putting on a show of anguish for his sake. The story closes with Mrs. Mooney calling Polly down so that Mr. Doran can speak to her.
Analysis of "A Story"
In “The Boarding House,” marriage offers promise and profit on the one hand, and entrapment and loss on the other. What begins as a simple affair becomes a tactical game of obligation and reparation. Mrs. Mooney’s and Mr. Doran’s propositions and hesitations suggest that marriage is more about social standards, public perception, and formal sanctions than about mere feelings. The character of Mrs. Mooney illustrates the challenges that a single mother of a daughter faces, but her scheme to marry Polly into a higher class mitigates any sympathetic response from the reader. Mrs. Mooney may have endured a difficult marriage and separation, but she now carries the dubious title of “The Madam,” a term suggestive of her scrupulous managing of the house, but also of the head of whorehouse. Mrs. Mooney does, in fact, prostitute her daughter to some degree. She insists that Polly leave her office job and stay at home at the boarding house, in part so she might entertain, however innocently, the male lodgers. When a relationship blossoms, Mrs. Mooney tracks it until the most profitable moment—until she is sure Mr. Doran, a successful clerk, must propose to Polly out of social propriety. Mrs. Mooney justly insists that men should carry the same responsibility as women in these casual love affairs, but at the same time prides herself on her ability to rid herself of a dependent daughter so easily.
Mr. Doran agonizes about the limitations and loss of respect that marrying beneath him will bring, but he ultimately relents out of fear of social critique from his priest, his employer, Mrs. Mooney, and Polly’s violent brother. When Polly visits him in distress he feels as helpless as she does, even though he tells her not to worry. He goes through the motions of what society expects of him, not according to what he intuitively feels. When he descends the stairs to meet with Mrs. Mooney, he yearns to escape but knows no one is on his side. The “force” that pushes him down the stairs is a force of anxiety about what others will think of him. While Mr. Doran’s victimization by Mrs. Mooney evokes pity, his self-concern and harsh complaints about Polly’s unpolished background and manner of speaking make him an equal counterpart to Mrs. Mooney. He worries little about Polly’s integrity or feelings, and instead considers his years of hard work and good reputation now verging on destruction. As a place where “everyone knows everyone else’s business,” the boarding house serves as a microcosm of Dublin. Various classes mix under its roof, but relationships are gauged and watched, class lines are constantly negotiated, and social standing must override emotions like love. The inhabitants are not free to do what they choose because unstated rules of decorum govern life in the house, just as they do in the city. Such rules maintain order, but they also ensnare people in awkward situations when they have competing and secret interests. Even the seemingly innocent Polly ultimately appears complicit in Mrs. Mooney’s plot. After threatening to kill herself in despair, she suddenly appears happy and unbothered about the dilemma when she is left alone, and she knows Mr. Doran will comply with Mrs. Mooney’s wishes. In “The Boarding House,” marriage serves as a fixture of life that Dubliners cannot avoid, and the story shows that strategy and acceptance are the only means of survival.
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