A Journew - studentereksamen A-niveau 2009

A Journey

”A Journey” is a short story written by Colm Tóibín and it was published in 2006.
In the short story we meet the woman Mary and her 21-year-old son, David. They are on the way to their home from a hospital where David has been admitted due to the fact that he suffers from a depression. On the way home, Mary tries to have a conversation with her son, but fails – he does not want to speak with her and nor does he want to sit in the front seat of the car. Even when Mary tells him that her husband Seamus – David’s father – is not well, David does not react until a while later where he asks if the father is in bed all the time. At home, the woman Mrs Redmond welcomes them and tells Mary about Seamus’ condition before she insists on talking to David in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Mary goes up to the bedroom where Seamus asks her if she has brought him back.
The story is told by a third-person narrator with both inner and outer point of view, but only Mary’s thoughts are described and everything is seen from her point of view. In this way the reader can follow her way of thinking and achieve an understanding of her situation. It is obvious throughout the entire story that Mary’s life is everything but easy. The fact that her son suffers from a mental illness is very difficult for her to accept and understand. This is for instance obvious in the way she keeps asking David questions, even though he expresses directly that he does not want her to, e.g. in line 94: “”What was it like, David, the hospital? I could never get any sense of it when we visited. I could never tell how you were.” “No questions, Ma, I said no questions.” David’s depression also makes her wonder if she and Seamus are to be blamed for his condition and whether anything can be done to help him recover: “She dreamed for a second that they had not sold it and thought that working there every day might help David, and she would oversee him, make sure that it did not become too much for him.” l. 120.
But this is not the only reason why she is troubled - also, her husband is dying. It is a difficult situation for her because even though he is not dead yet, she feels like the Seamus she knows is disappeared forever. This is shown in line 83: “He will be lying with his eyes open, she thought, and he’ll barely glance at me when I come in”. As this extract shows, Mary does not feel like she matters to Seamus any more – he does not even look at her when she enters the room. Also, the illness has decreased him to a helpless person who is not even able to go to bed by himself, which we see in line 128. As a result of this, Mary feels even more unable to help David to recover.
But despite his condition, Seamus does still care about David. This is very clear in the end of the story where he asks Mary, if she has brought David back from the hospital. When she does not answer, he repeats the question and this shows us clearly that he is very interested in his child. The fact that Mary does not answer can be interpret as a picture of the fact that she does not feel like she has brought David home – at least not the David she knows. What the parents want is a healthy and happy child and they obviously both hate the fact that he has to be so miserable.
David’s depression has to be seen in the light of his father’s illness. To have a dying father in the age of 21 must be very difficult, as it forces the young man, who is still in the beginning of his life, to make his mind up about the ending of everything – death. The beginning of the story also indicates this as David, aged 4, asks his mother if everyone is going to die – children in that age are not able to understand this. And even though David is a bit older when his father is dying, he still does not want to face the fact that life will end at some point. Instead, he chooses to escape into silence and dissociation from not just his parents, but life in general. The title “A Journey” describes the fact that life is like a journey. Just as Mary and Daniel’s trip from the hospital ends at some point, when they reach their home, life will also end at some point.
Depression is also the theme of the text “Depression” which deals with depression and why some young people suffer from the mental illness. It describes how adolescents undergo a great personal change and that the fact that they have to make their own decisions and become grown-ups can be difficult for them to relate to. This can also help us to understand David’s situation as it tells us that he might have difficulties with becoming an adult – especially because he witnesses that one of the most important adults in his life is dying. In the poem “Lucinda Matlock” by Edgar Lee Masters, the difficulties with enjoying and loving life are also described - it says that it is necessary to have lived a life before being able to enjoy it. This can also be transferred to David’s situation as he needs to learn to accept the premises of life – among these that life does end – before he can enjoy living; and this will probably be easier for him when he becomes older.

Flashback
In the short story “A Journey”, the use of flashback makes the reader able to understand how Mary’s life was earlier in comparison to her life situation now. There is an example of it in line 56: “She remembered the atmosphere inside the house the day they went to look at it, all bare walls and the hollow sounds their feet made. Now Seamus was lying upstairs in that same house. The whole right side of his body was paralysed.” This flashback makes the contrast between the past and the present very visible; in the past, life was full of opportunities – they could fill the house with exactly the furniture they wanted to. The present is a contrast to this as Seamus lies motionless in his bed, unable to move or act in any way. There is another flashback in line 86: “She dreamed now of going back to Cush with him, of a bright summer day and the light from the sea giving him back something long lost, an old vitality he seemed to have wilfully discarded”. This flashback gives us the impression of the past as an unproblematic and light time where David was still happy and unconcerned – which is the exact opposite of the situation at the present.
 

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