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a Brooklyn text response responding to the prompt....
While Eilis is a character of genuine integrity she is unable to confront the conventional expectations of a woman’s role. Do you agree?
Eilis, the protagonist of Colm Toibin’s novel ‘Brooklyn’ succumbs to the power of others which disallows her to develop her virtues. Thus endangering her ability to fulfil the customary expectations of the feminist role in the 1950’s. Eilis’s dependence creates a vulnerable young woman whom the audience witnesses adjusting and refashioning her attributes to acquiesce with life in Brooklyn. While Eilis endeavours to integrate in American society she is a naturally individualistic woman living amongst a world of conformity.
Eilis is unconventional as a result of her undeveloped integrity and her dependence on others to make fundamental life decisions. At the beginning of the novel Toibin portrays Eilis as reliant on her older sister, Rose to make arrangements and significant choices in her life. Upon Eilis’s departure to Brooklyn ‘Rose had organised everything’. This positions the reader to view Rose as an efficient young woman, while Eilis is content to be waited on and cosseted by her older sister. However, Eilis does not find it strange that Rose so ‘precisely organised her going’ and makes constitutional preparations for her because all her life Rose takes the matriarchal position in the household. In Ireland, it is expected that women take the role as a housewife and a mother, yet Eilis does not see the need to accept or pursue this role since Rose and her mother already fulfil it. Eilis’s dependence on those around her escalates through the novel and Toibin shows Father Flood taking a patriarchal position in Eilis’s life while she is in Brooklyn. Father Flood takes the responsibility of her homesickness, claiming, ‘it is my fault’. This positions the reader to feel that Eilis does not have the opportunity to take responsibility for her own feelings. In order to help Eilis overcome her homesickness Father Flood ‘enrols her in the night class of book keeping and preliminary accounting’. Once again Toibin positions the reader to feel Eilis’s reliance on others while also showing that she didn’t have the opportunity to make her own decisions. Father Flood tells Eilis that now she can ‘spend her spare time studying’ showing the reader that there is very little that Eilis has to decide in her life. Eilis taking night classes also reinforces her unconventionality in that it was still uncommon for woman to take further study in the 1950’s. Eilis’s marriage to Tony is Toibin’s way of showing the audience that even the most important decisions in her life are made for her. Tony convinces Eilis to marry him even though she feels that a ‘promise would be enough’. As a result of Eilis’s dependence she becomes unable to stand up for what she believes is right. Tony then ‘arranges a date’ for the wedding reinforcing her dependence, now to her boyfriend. Once Eilis returns to Enniscorthy Toibin shows the audience that the decisions that are made for her are not always what she believes is right. She begins to doubt her marriage. ‘wishing now that she had not married him’. Eilis’s dependence on others suppresses her growth as a character and disallows her to be integral to her values.
Eilis is unconventional as the audience experiences here subtle yet consistent transformation throughout the novel. Toibin show Eilis as a reserved girl, not deeply invested in others company. Yet upon her arrival back home after Rose’s death Nancy tells her that she has ‘changed’ and ‘everything about her is different’. When Eilis and Nancy go to the dance at the Athenaeum Toibin describes them as ‘wallflowers’ leaving the audience with the impression that Eilis is somewhat socially challenged. However, upon her arrival in Brooklyn, the atmosphere and culture is so vastly different that she was comfortable dancing with men she wasn’t even acquainted with, though ‘she wondered who the young man she was dancing with was’. The audience witness a transformation in Eilis’s as she develops maturity through her experiences. Her journey from Ireland to America at the beginning of the novel shows an ignorant girl, unexposed to the world of travel. However, when she returns at the end of the novel she is willing to catch the ‘next boat going across the Atlantic’ and she does not suffer the illness she did on her initial trip. Before leaving Enniscorthy Eilis is a naïve girl, ignorant to the ways and history of the rest of the world. Toibin displays this to the audience when Eilis is uniformed of the ‘holocaust’ during the second World War. This leaves concern with the audience as they contemplate such an innocent woman in such a large and progressing place. The audience witnesses a transformation within Eilis in her relationship with Jim Farrell. Initially, Eilis views Jim as ‘rude’ and stuck up with his ‘hair all greasy’. When Eilis meets him again after she is married to Tony, she develops feelings for him and begins to wish ‘she had not married Tony’ because it makes her feel like ‘two people’. Their relationship progresses from a cool friendship into romance that Eilis’s maturity cannot allow her to pursue. The audience then experiences a more adult Eilis making the decision to return to her husband rather than consider divorce and a future with Jim.
Eilis, a solitary character, does not see the need to confront the conventional expectations of a woman’s role but rather lives as an individual in a world of conformity. Eilis likes being ‘alone’ and is content being individualistic rather than in the cliques that are so forefront of the culture in Mrs Kehoe’s boarding house. Toibin uses Patty and Diana, Eilis’s housemates to symbolise the conformity that existed in every aspect of her life, and to show the contrast between Eilis and the people with whom she lives. Mrs Kehoe confides in Eilis about her feelings about Patty and Diana and ‘the evils of giddiness’. Eilis is once again portrayed as an individual with her homesickness. She would rather be ‘alone’ than be comforted by another. This allows the reader to understand that while at times Eilis’s individuality is beneficial to her, there are times when she would have benefited from being a part of the coterie that exist in her boarding house, thus meaning she could have expressed her feelings rather than suffering the hardships of immigration alone. Toibin shows Eilis’s individuality again at Bartocci’s and her encounters with racism. Amongst all the women at Bartocci’s it is Eilis who views the black women with respect rather than with curiosity. Toibin show Eilis’s sympathy and understanding with the black women because as an immigrant herself, she understands what it is like to be ‘different’. Within America in the 1950’s the Civil Rights Movement was at a peak and Toibin uses this to show that Eilis was individualistic in a world conformed by racism and hatred. This allows the reader to view Eilis as a caring and compassionate woman, unconventional in her beliefs.
Through Colm Toibin’s novel Eilis Lacey’s character is that of palpable rectitude yet she is not given the opportunity to develop her virtues because of the suppressing power of the people in her life. Eilis develops independence but cannot grow in her integrity as so many of her fundamental life decisions are made for her. It is only when Eilis returns to Brooklyn after her sister’s death that she begins to fulfil the conventional role of a woman.
Moderator action: Moved this back to the submissions board 
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