Brooklyn

by

Colm Tóibín

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Themes and Colors
Time and Adaptability Theme Icon
Immigration, Social Status, and Reputation Theme Icon
Communication, Hidden Emotion, and Secrecy Theme Icon
Coming of Age and Passivity Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Brooklyn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Communication, Hidden Emotion, and Secrecy Theme Icon

In Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín spotlights the difficulties associated with ineffective communication. To do this, he presents the Lacey family as uncommunicative when it comes to their feelings; Eilis, her sister Rose, and her mother never talk about their emotions. When Eilis goes to the United States, this emotional barrier helps her ease into a life of relative solitude, since she’s so used to keeping her feelings to herself. However, it also prevents her from being forthright with her eventual boyfriend, Tony, who’s incredibly transparent about the way he feels. Furthermore, when Rose dies because of a heart condition she neglected to tell anyone about, Eilis experiences the harsh consequences of establishing such unforthcoming relationships. And yet, she continues to keep her own secrets, failing to inform her mother, new boyfriend, and community that she married Tony before returning to Ireland. As a result, she ends up hurting people and putting an unnecessary strain on herself by maintaining this secret. Through the lives of Eilis and her family members, Tóibín suggests that a failure to express oneself can lead to undue misery. 

Eilis’s inability to talk about her feelings aligns with her family’s nature. This is made evident by the fact that her mother and sister—who live in the same house as her—hardly talk about their emotions, purposefully avoiding difficult topics. In the days before Eilis leaves for the United States, she begins to think she’s the wrong person to be taking this opportunity. Instead, she thinks, Rose should be the one traveling to America. She also realizes that she doesn’t even want to go, and she suspects that both Rose and her mother also know that it would make more sense for Rose to take her place. The only reason they don’t say this, Eilis suspects, is that they’ve both decided—separately—that Rose should make a sacrifice for Eilis, who has her entire life ahead of her. For this reason, they focus on helping Eilis prepare for her journey to America, using this task to distract themselves from addressing the facts that Eilis might not want to go and that Rose would be a better candidate. Sensing their unwillingness to speak these thoughts, Eilis decides once and for all that she won’t give even “the smallest hint of how” she really feels. In turn, readers see that this uncommunicative approach to life is something that perpetuates itself, as Eilis takes cues from her loved ones to keep quiet about her feelings and, in turn, all three women go through with something that they’re not sure is good idea. 

When Eilis first reaches the United States, her tendency to avoid emotional expression plays to her favor, since she doesn’t have anyone in whom she might confide in the first place. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she continues to withhold her thoughts from Rose and her mother, too, choosing not to write to them about experiences she thinks might worry them. Instead, she processes her initial impressions of America by reviewing the events of each day in her head at night. Given this emotionally reclusive approach to life, then, she’s surprised by Tony’s openness when they start dating. Unlike her, he’s not afraid to say what he means or express how he feels. When, for example, he casually tells her that he wants their children to be Dodgers fans, she’s utterly taken aback by his willingness to reveal that he wants to have children with her. She, on the other hand, feels incapable of even responding to this pronouncement, wishing instantly that she were alone so she could think in solitude about what he’s just said. Unfortunately for her, though, this isn’t the way relationships unfold, and her failure to respond to Tony’s excited ideas about the future lead him to think that she has tacitly agreed to marry him—an idea to which she ultimately acquiesces, though her inability to express her reservations unfairly leads him to believe that their relationship is stronger than it really is.

Later, when she receives news of her sister’s death, Eilis experiences what it’s like to discover that a loved one has been keeping an important secret. Rose, she learns, knew that she had a deadly heart condition but didn’t tell anyone. Instead of confiding in her mother or Eilis, she kept them in the dark about her health because she didn’t want to upset them. This ultimately puts them through unnecessary turmoil, as they try in the aftermath of her unexpected death to process what has happened. When Eilis calls home, her mother says she wishes Rose had told her what was happening, lamenting the fact that Rose didn’t want to worry her. “I don’t know what to think,” she says, indicating that Rose’s secrecy has only led to confusion and sorrow. In this sense, Eilis’s mother clearly feels bad that her own daughter felt uncomfortable telling her the truth because she thought she had to protect her. In this moment, Tóibín intimates that even well-intentioned secrecy can do emotional damage to loved ones.

Although Eilis witnesses the emotional fallout of Rose’s secret, she herself continues to conceal certain important aspects of her life, such as the fact that she and Tony got married. In fact, she doesn’t tell anyone in Ireland that Tony even exists, instead letting herself begin a relationship with Jim Farrell that excites her mother, who relishes the idea of Eilis marrying Jim and staying in Ireland. Eventually, it gets out that Eilis has a lover in Brooklyn, and she’s forced to return to Tony, disappointing both her mother and Jim—two people she cares about very much. That she experienced firsthand what it’s like for a loved one to keep secrets and still kept her marriage a secret underlines not only that an inability (or unwillingness) to communicate openly leads to heartache and regret, but also that it’s difficult for people to be open and honest if they’ve spent a lifetime concealing their emotions. This, Tóibín indicates, is why it’s important for loved ones to cultivate open, communicative relationships with each other.

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Communication, Hidden Emotion, and Secrecy Quotes in Brooklyn

Below you will find the important quotes in Brooklyn related to the theme of Communication, Hidden Emotion, and Secrecy.
Part One Quotes

“Your mother’ll be pleased that you have something. And your sister,” Miss Kelly said. “I hear she’s great at the golf. So go home now like a good girl. You can let yourself out.”

Miss Kelly turned and began to walk slowly up the stairs. Eilis knew as she made her way home that her mother would indeed be happy that she had found some way of making money of her own, but that Rose would think working behind the counter of a gro­cery shop was not good enough for her. She wondered if Rose would say this to her directly.

Related Characters: Miss Kelly (speaker), Eilis Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey)
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

Rose, at thirty, Eilis thought, was more glamorous every year, and, while she had had several boyfriends, she remained single; she often remarked that she had a much better life than many of her former schoolmates who were to be seen pushing prams through the streets. Eilis was proud of her sister, of how much care she took with her appearance and how much care she put into whom she mixed with in the town and the golf club. She knew that Rose had tried to find her work in an office, and Rose was paying for her books now that she was studying bookkeeping and rudimentary accountancy, but she knew also that there was, at least for the moment, no work for anyone in Enniscorthy, no matter what their qualifications.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey), Miss Kelly
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:

She did not know if the other two also realized that this was the first time they had laughed at this table since Jack had followed the others to Birmingham. She would have loved to say something about him, but she knew that it would make her mother too sad. Even when a letter came from him it was passed around in silence. So she continued mocking Miss Kelly, stopping only when someone called for Rose to take her to play golf, leav­ing Eilis and her mother to clear the table and wash the dishes.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey), Miss Kelly, Jack Lacey
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

Until now, Eilis had always presumed that she would live in the town all her life, as her mother had done, knowing everyone, having the same friends and neighbours, the same routines in the same streets. She had expected that she would find a job in the town, and then marry someone and give up the job and have children. Now, she felt that she was being singled out for something for which she was not in any way prepared, and this, despite the fear it carried with it, gave her a feeling, or more a set of feelings, she thought she might experience in the days before her wedding, days in which everyone looked at her in the rush of arrange­ments with light in their eyes, days in which she herself was fizzy with excitement but careful not to think too precisely about what the next few weeks would be like in case she lost her nerve.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey), Father Flood, Miss Kelly
Page Number: 29
Explanation and Analysis:

She would prefer to stay at home, sleep in this room, live in this house, do without the clothes and shoes. The arrangements being made, all the bustle and talk, would be bet­ter if they were for someone else, she thought, someone like her, someone the same age and size, who maybe even looked the same as she did, as long as she, the person who was thinking now, could wake in this bed every morning and move as the day went on in these familiar streets and come home to the kitchen, to her mother and Rose.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey)
Page Number: 31
Explanation and Analysis:

She wondered if her mother too believed that the wrong sister was leaving, and understood what Rose’s motives were. She imag­ined that her mother knew everything. They knew so much, each one of them, she thought, that they could do everything except say out loud what it was they were thinking. She resolved as she went back to her room that she would do everything she could for them by pretending at all times that she was filled with excitement at the great adventure on which she was ready to embark. She would make them believe, if she could, that she was looking forward to America and leaving home for the first time. She promised herself that not for one moment would she give them the smallest hint of how she felt, and she would keep it from herself if she had to until she was away from them.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey)
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

As her stomach began dry heaves, she realized that she would never be able to tell anyone how sick she felt. She pictured her mother standing at the door waving as the car took her and Rose to the railway station, the expression on her mother’s face strained and worried, managing a final smile when the car turned down Friary Hill. What was happening now, she hoped, was something that her mother had never even imagined. If it had been somehow easier, just rocking back and forth, then she might have been able to convince herself that it was a dream, or it would not last, but every moment of it was absolutely real, totally solid and part of her waking life, as was the foul taste in her mouth and the grinding of the engines and the heat that seemed to be increasing as the night wore on.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey), Georgina
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Two Quotes

She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant any­thing. The rooms in the house on Friary Street belonged to her, she thought; when she moved in them she was really there. In the town, if she walked to the shop or to the Vocational School, the air, the light, the ground, it was all solid and part of her, even if she met no one familiar. Nothing here was part of her. It was false, empty, she thought. She closed her eyes and tried to think, as she had done so many times in her life, of something she was looking forward to, but there was nothing. Not the slightest thing.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey)
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:

None of them could help her. She had lost all of them. They would not find out about this; she would not put it into a letter. And because of this she understood that they would never know her now. Maybe, she thought, they had never known her, any of them, because if they had, then they would have had to realize what this would be like for her.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey), Jack Lacey
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:

It was only when he came to the chorus, however, that she understood the words—“Má bhíonn tú liom, a stóirín mo chroí”—and he glanced at her proudly, almost possessively, as he sang these lines. All the peo­ple in the hall watched him silently. […] And then each time he came to the chorus he looked at her, letting the melody become sweeter by slowing down the pace, putting his head down then, managing to suggest even more that he had not merely learned the song but that he meant it. Eilis knew how sorry this man was going to be, and how sorry she would be, when the song had ended, when the last chorus had to be sung and the singer would have to bow to the crowd and go back to his place and give way to another singer as Eilis too went back and sat in her chair.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Father Flood
Page Number: 94
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Three Quotes

“You know what I really want?” he asked. “I want our kids to be Dodgers fans.”

He was so pleased and excited at the idea, she thought, that he did not notice her face freezing. She could not wait to be alone, away from him, so she could contemplate what he had just said. Later, as she lay on the bed and thought about it, she realized that it fitted in with everything else, that recently he had been plan­ning the summer and how much time they would spend together. Recently too he had begun to tell her after he kissed her that he loved her and she knew that he was waiting for a response, a response that, so far, she had not given.

Related Characters: Tony (speaker), Eilis Lacey
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:

I wish she had told me, or let me know something was wrong. She didn’t want to worry me. […] Maybe I couldn’t have done much but I would have watched out for her. I don’t know what to think.

Related Characters: Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey) (speaker), Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Four Quotes

Eilis marvelled at the different ways each person had expressed condolences once they had gone beyond the first one or two sen­tences. Her mother tried too, in how she replied, to vary the tone and the content, to write something suitable in response to each person. But it was slow and by the end of the first day Eilis had still not gone out into the street or had any time alone. And less than half the work was done.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Rose Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey)
Related Symbols: The Thank-You Cards
Page Number: 215
Explanation and Analysis:

Ellis worked out in her head that the wedding was four days after the planned date of her departure; she also remembered that the travel agent in Brooklyn had said she could change the date as long as she notified the shipping company in advance. She decided there and then that she would stay an extra week and hoped that no one in Bartocci’s would object too strongly. It would be easy to explain to Tony that her mother had misunder­stood her date of departure, even though Eilis did not believe that her mother had misunderstood anything.

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Eilis’s Mother (Mrs. Lacey), Tony, Nancy Byrne
Related Symbols: The Thank-You Cards
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:

She could not stop herself from wondering, however, what would happen if she were to write to Tony to say that their mar­riage was a mistake. How easy would it be to divorce someone? Could she possibly tell Jim what she had done such a short while earlier in Brooklyn? The only divorced people anyone in the town knew were Elizabeth Taylor and perhaps some other film stars. It might be possible to explain to Jim how she had come to be married, but he was someone who had never lived outside the town. His innocence and his politeness, both of which made him nice to be with, would actually be, she thought, limitations, especially if something as unheard of and out of the question, as far from his experience as divorce, were raised. The best thing to do, she thought, was to put the whole thing out of her mind […].

Related Characters: Eilis Lacey, Tony, Nancy Byrne, George Sheridan, Jim Farrell
Page Number: 245
Explanation and Analysis: