Home Theme Analysis

Despite being set in wartime, much of the story focuses on domestic simplicity, if not bliss. Belcher is the focal point for this theme, as he reveals his shattered domestic situation and his desire to cobble together a new one. “Guests of the Nation” suggests that home is not merely one’s birthplace, but rather a feeling that can be found or built in unlikely places. Here, even a stint as a prisoner in a foreign land can be a sort of home. But that can also work in the other direction, as it does for Bonaparte, when the trauma of the executions makes him feel like a stranger in his homeland.

The image of the hearth, or fireplace, is threaded throughout the story to symbolize the pull of home and domestic life. It also emphasizes how successful this hodgepodge of soldiers, prisoners, and a civilian have been in creating a home. Belcher, the character most drawn to domestic life, always has his legs in the “ashes,” meaning he’s trying to warm himself by the hearth. Furthermore, the religious argument between ‘Awkins, Noble, and the old woman is a feature of a family gathering, rather than an assembly of strangers. The power of this domestic imagery is especially felt when it’s taken away. After the execution, the old woman’s house is cold and dark in contrast to its earlier liveliness. Noble even kneels by the fireplace, drawn to that symbol of the home that was lost.

Additionally, the Irish find it strange that Belcher is so eager to assist the old woman with her chores, anticipating her movements to ease her burdens. They don’t know then that Belcher’s wife and child left him eight years ago, and that his time at the old woman’s house is a chance for him to “start again.” ‘Awkins has a similar longing, revealed when he complains that he’s being moved “just as a man mikes a ‘ome of a bleeding place.” But while ‘Awkins loafs and squabbles and expects a home to spring up around him, Belcher is willing to build one. When Jeremiah informs him that he’s moving back to the Second Battalion, Belcher expresses his gratitude to the old woman for the opportunity to create a home with her, behaving like a grateful son to an elderly mother. Even at the brink of execution, Belcher, who’s normally so quiet, babbles about “being so ‘andy abaout a ‘ouse.” His last thoughts turn to simple household chores and the “feeling of a ‘ome” they bring.

As the execution approaches, images of domesticity are twisted in Bonaparte’s mind, as he thinks “I began to perceive in the dusk the desolate edges of the bog that was to be their last earthly bed.” The word choice of “bed” marks a haunting contrast between the bed—a core feature of home—and the lonely swamp they’ll rest in. The idea of that final resting place for two former friends haunts Bonaparte, and he becomes estranged from the land he thought he knew. Bonaparte describes the aftermath of the execution as “mad lonely” and the bog as the “treacherous bog,” as if the landscape not only betrays his footing but also his trust. When the old woman and Noble fall to their knees by the fire, Noble pushes past them as if sickened by the effort to recreate a lost home. He describes a feeling of receding from his homeland, “as though the patch of bog where the two Englishmen were was a thousand miles away…” Instead of twittering, the birds shriek and even the stars seem alone. O’Connor emphasizes that just as home can be built anywhere, it can be lost anywhere.