Paralysis and Decay Theme Analysis

When he wrote Dubliners, James Joyce believed that the decades of conflict in Ireland, whether between the Irish and their English colonizers, or between Catholics and Protestants, had left the Irish people in a state of “paralysis”: cultural, economic, and political stagnation that led to the decline of Irish society. Many of the characters in “A Mother” seem to be afflicted with some sort of paralysis: Mr Holohan, the inexperienced concert promoter for the Irish Nationalist Eire Abu Society, has a bad leg; Mrs Kearney fixates on her daughter’s eight-guinea payment; and Kathleen Kearney seems to sit idly by for much of the story and allow her mother to make all her decisions for her. As the final night of Eire Abu’s concert series stalls because of the devolving dispute between Mrs Kearney and the Society Committee over Kathleen’s pay, Joyce draws parallels between their relatively inconsequential disagreement and the larger conflicts plaguing turn-of-the-20th-century Ireland to highlight the roots of Ireland’s paralysis.

Mr Holohan’s bad leg is the first sign of Ireland’s paralysis in “A Mother,” suggesting that organizations like the Eire Abu Society aren’t a very effective means of promoting Irish Nationalism. When Joyce dedicates the first paragraph of “A Mother” to describing Mr Holohan, Holohan’s most prominent feature is his “game leg” that makes him walk with a limp and leads to his friends calling him “Hoppy Holohan.” Since Mr Holohan is the face of the Eire Abu Society when advertising for the concert, his leg simultaneously foreshadows the limping start that the concert series will have before gaining an audience and suggests the “limp” and hobbled state of the Irish Nationalist movement at the time. Towards the end of “A Mother,” when Mrs Kearney watches Mr Holohan like a predator as he limps around backstage, Joyce hints at one reason for the Nationalist movement’s troubles: wealthy Dubliners taking advantage of the movement’s opportunities for social gain. Overall, his bad leg is an omen for the overall ineffectiveness of the Eire Abu Society: none of the Society members seem qualified for their position—or seem to understand what their position is—and all of them have a difficult time acting when problems arise.

By overshadowing the final concert’s Nationalist aims with her personal fixation on getting her daughter’s eight guineas, Mrs Kearney contributes to the Eire Abu Society’s disorganization and failure, revealing how individuals’ limitations and paralyses can bring down an entire movement. By describing how Mrs Kearney uses Nationalism to make a name for her daughter and enhance her family’s reputation, Joyce establishes that she is not actually invested in the Irish Nationalist cause. Thus, when she takes pains to help Mr Holohan order the performers, make the bills, and sell tickets, the reader knows that she does so not to advance the Nationalist cause in Ireland but to co-opt its popularity for her own gain, keeping her stuck in her self-serving ways and, in turn, contributing to the stagnation of the Nationalist cause. Her concern with the concerts’ failure is also not about the Nationalist message failing to get out, but about her daughter’s money—the concerts have already faced enough challenges, and Mrs Kearney’s decision to keep Kathleen from playing until she is paid represents just another petty obstacle to Nationalist success in Ireland.

Finally, one of the most paralyzed characters in “A Mother” is Kathleen Kearney—but she also shows the surest signs that she might be able to break out of her paralysis. Throughout “A Mother,” Kathleen is talked about far more often than she talks; Joyce never gives the reader insight into her thoughts, and although the concert is supposed to be Kathleen’s career opportunity, Mrs Kearney ends up micromanaging the whole thing and taking center stage. Even while Mrs Kearney and Mr Holohan’s argument gets most heated, Kathleen only stares at her shoes and keeps quiet, following her mother’s directions without question. However, Kathleen is only performing at the concert because it is a good opportunity for her to gain exposure and have a career of her own. While Mrs Kearney and Mr Holohan remain locked in their dispute, Kathleen manages to overcome her paralysis before her mother’s demands and start the Saturday night concert without full payment, suggesting that, whatever her views about Ireland’s broader problems, she is less set in her ways than the older characters in the story. Kathleen’s quiet breakthrough hints that there’s hope for the younger generation to carry on the cause in a more proactive and effective way.