"The Withering Branch" and "The Year 1912"
1) How do you see Irish mythology and the "fairy world" reflected in O'Cadhain stories? What purpose do these references serve?
2) What does "the trunk" come to represent in the story "The Year 1912"?
3) The early to mid 20th century in Ireland was a time of intense economic hardship and massive emigration. Many young people were not permitted to marry due to such economic constraints and as men fled Ireland to seek their fortune in America, many women in particular remained single and unmarried. You can see the kind of intense sexual and romantic longing reflected in the tragic song "He Moved Through the Fair," sang by Sinead O'Connor in this video: http://youtu.be/8DQnS18EeWM
Written around 1909, the song echoes a deep sense of loss and heartache. How do you see the results of Irish economic conditions in these stories?
By: Lynn Schambow
ReplyDeleteIn “The Year 1912” the first words are about the trunk, which seems like a strange way to start a story. But it shows how important the trunk is to the story. A mother had bought her daughter this trunk not long ago so her daughter could leave home. This trunk haunts the mother in a way that she doesn’t like to see it. The daughter is very excited to show it off and have it in a place where everyone can see it. In the text it is depicted like this “a ghost from the Otherworld come to snatch away the first conception of her womb and the spring of her daily life” (25). The way the mother says this makes me think for the fairies and how they took the children. It is something that the mother cannot control. The daughter is going to America which was very common but for the mother I think that America is like the fairyland. It’s a place that she can’t protect her daughter or be near her. It is the unknown for the mother. The mother also compares the trunk to a corpse that she can’t look into the trunk for the same reason she can’t look into a coffin. I think is the shock and the realness you feel looking at a corpse and seeing for yourself they are gone the mother may feel this way about the trunk. At the end this quote seemed to be whispered in her ear “No moral kiss will break the spell of the changeling seduced by pleasure to wonder and forget whose dwelling is this golden web which young desires weave from the sunlight on green hills far off from the here and now” (38). What do you think this means?
By: Lukas Wagner
ReplyDeleteIn The Year 1912 by Mairtin O Cadhain the trunk is what plays a major part of the story. It starts out my talking about the trunk and what it is for. Her daughter had bought it about a week ago because she was doing what her other eight sisters have already done, move to America. Her daughter likes to have the trunk out in the open so everyone can see it and admire it. On the other her mother has a hard time seeing the truck knowing that her daughter would soon be moving on to America. Her mother first describes the trunk as “It was useful and well-made, but that was the only a chimera, a ghost from the otherworld come to snatch away the first conception of her womb and the spring of her daily life, just when the drinking, the high spirits, the music and merrymaking were in full spate”(25). This show how much the mother is worried that she will be losing another child from her house that she will barley ever see again moving so far away. To me Mairtin O Cadhain resembles America to a fairy because, just like the fairy’s America is taking her children away to where she may never see them again. To me this is a very common thing that happens in Ireland today a lot of the elders that grew up there live out their life there while a lot of the younger generation moves away to find better jobs in America.
By: Ashley Kreul
ReplyDeleteIn “The Year 1912”, the story is symbolized by this trunk and that is how the story starts off which is describing the trunk and what different views it has for the mother and the daughter. The idea of the trunk is for the girl to put her things in and treasure it as she moves away to America. The daughter loves the trunk and is very into showing it off as she does during the social gathering that takes place. The mother wants it put away, covered up out of sight because it is a sore sight for her to look at as it portrays that her daughter is leaving. The idea of the trunk being some sort of bearing wall between the mother and the daughter. The mother cannot control the daughter from leaving because it is what the daughter wants to do. She wants to be away and it is her fantasy to be in America as on page 33 it states: “Brightcity was the farthest from home she had ever been, but she had been nurtured on American lore from infancy (33). This shows the connection that the daughter has with wanting to go to America and that is why the mother cant control or stop her from leaving. The idea of the daughter leaving is heartache for the mother because she will be so far away and the mother has never been there, so it gives her a sense of fear about the unknown world, what could be there for her. Obviously the way her daughter is leaving home makes America feel as if it is a magical place, a place to be taken away to. Everybody was going there at the time, young ones so it makes America seem as if it is a fairy palace where young kids are swept away to explore but yet are unsafe and unprotected from their parents. The daughter is leaving and the mother makes it seem that her kids are disobeying her. On page 32: “At that moment, the children she had given birth to were here greatest enemies.” (32). What does this mean? The daughter is leaving to marry Padraigin but what is this talk about three things being tortured? “Damned spirits, they appeared to the mother-the accursed trunk, Mairead greedy to get her passage money, and Padraigin Phaidin on edge to get to America and marry her daughter—three damned spirits torturing her first born and best-beloved (38). What does this mean? As we see it is uncertain whether the daughter will return to her native land but she is to seek joy and life’s exciting adventures.