Summary
Analysis
Mick Delaney finds out one day that his friend, Mr. Dooley, has died. Mr. Dooley, a traveling salesman, knew everything there was to know about the life of the town. Even though he was “miles ahead” of the Delaney family socially, Mr. Dooley was still willing to give Mick the inside scoop on things that Mick, a mere laborer, had no way of knowing.
The opening of the story introduces two central ideas. First, Mr. Dooley’s role as a local gossip (and the fact that Mick loves Mr. Dooley for this) shows how important gossip and rumor are in town. Second, this passage hints at Mick’s grasping for status. After all, Mr. Dooley is more socially important than Mick, and it’s implied that part of why Mick values Mr. Dooley is that he makes Mick feel looped into the social lives of high-status men.
Mick resolves to go the funeral, which his wife, Mrs. Delaney, discourages. Mick tells her that others would talk if he didn’t attend, but she counters that he hardly knows the Dooley family. In part, Mrs. Delaney hesitates to let Mick go because he will lose a half-day’s pay if he attends the funeral, but her real worry is that Mick will see the funeral as an excuse to drink.
Mick wants to go the funeral because Mr. Dooley is well-liked in town, and Mick wants to be well-liked by proxy. Here, readers see for the first time Mick making decisions based on social pressure. While Mrs. Delaney is ultimately right to worry about Mick going to the funeral, Mick decides to go—regardless of whether it will imperil his sobriety—because he’s worried that, if he doesn’t, people will talk about him.
Mick is currently in one of his regular periods of sobriety, in which he becomes a courteous man who delights in saving money while more foolish men spend their hard-earned cash at the pub. But these sober periods always come to an end when Mick gets “so puffed up with spiritual pride” about not drinking that he celebrates himself with a drink. From there, Mick tends to descend into constant drinking, making him miss work and behave horribly, spending all the family’s money.
Although O’Connor’s tone remains superficially light and comic throughout, and he never judges his characters explicitly, it is nonetheless clear that Mick is being condemned here as a self-deluded hypocrite who’s intoxicated (pun intended) with his own self-righteousness and is seemingly blind to the pain his binges inflict on his family. His vanity is on full display here, as he has no humility even about sobriety: he gets so proud of himself for being sober that he has to celebrate it with a drink, plunging the family into difficulty.
Fearing that Mr. Dooley’s funeral will trigger Mick’s drinking, Mrs. Delaney protests that Mick must look after their young son Larry, and Mick agrees—Larry will come to the funeral. Larry knows that he’s too old to need looking after; his mother simply wants him to be a “brake” on his father’s drinking. “As a brake, I had never achieved anything,” Larry reflects, but he knows that his mother believes in him.
Mrs. Delaney is essentially weaponizing Larry’s innocence here (as she has evidently done in the past, as well) in hopes that his presence at the funeral will stop Mick from going to the pub afterwards. It’s clear that Mrs. Delaney is putting Larry in a difficult position, especially for a child so young. After all, Larry himself doesn’t anticipate succeeding at keeping his father from drinking, even though his mother desperately wants him to. This means that, if his father drinks, Larry might think it’s his fault—a horrible relationship for a child to have with his alcoholic father.
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The next day, wearing his very best suit, Mick brings Larry to Mr. Dooley’s funeral. Peter Crowley is there, whom Larry sees as a “danger signal,” since Crowley attends funerals only for the free drinks. Mick finds the funeral excellent; it’s fancy and full of important people. Larry sees danger signals everywhere: it’s a beautiful day, Mick is in “distinguished company,” and—having mourned his friend—Mick feels especially alive.
Mick, a simple laborer, wants to improve his social status, if only temporarily, by mingling with Mr. Dooley’s important friends. Larry, meanwhile, has seen it all before—this is by no means the first time he’s been put in a situation of this kind, which is why he’s so accustomed to these “danger signals.” His childhood innocence has been steadily eroded by his father behaving badly and his mother putting him directly in his father’s path.
The mourners head to the bar, and Larry seizes his chance to be a “brake,” asking his father if they can go home now. Mick says they can go soon and offers Larry a lemonade, which Larry knows is a bribe. Mick orders the lemonade and a pint, and while thirsty Larry drinks his lemonade quickly, Mick leaves his pint untouched—he is in no rush, anticipating “an eternity of pleasure” before him. Mick turns his back on the pint and regales the other mourners with stories of “all the important funerals” he has attended in the past.
Again, Larry knows exactly what Mick’s game is here because he’s been through it before; he is used to being manipulated by his father. Meanwhile, Mick, as a vain man, seizes the chance to present himself as worldly and well-connected to his fellow mourners. His vanity and desire to construct a favorable image of himself lead him to ignore Larry (and his pint)—which, in turn, leads to the story’s tragicomic climax.
Larry asks again if they can go home, but Mick tells the boy to go play in the road. Reflecting that his father might stay for hours, Larry anticipates once again having to bring Mick home, “blind drunk,” while all the neighbors gossip about them. Bored and thirsty, Larry grabs Mick’s pint to see what it tastes like. It’s disgusting, but since Mick is still “holding forth” while Peter Crowley listens “reverently,” Larry keeps drinking. It suddenly makes him feel “elevated and philosophic,” which soon gives way to the impulse to laugh. By the time the pint is done, Larry feels depressed and sick. He’s barely able to put the glass back on the bar.
Mick’s bad parenting is on full display here. Worse still, it’s clear that Larry has had previous experiences of helping his father through drunkenness. That even a young child understands the social humiliation this entails shows again how powerful reputation and gossip are in this community. The serious implications of this scene are set in sharp contrast with the overt comedy of Larry having his first ever drink and experiencing revulsion, “philosophic” detachment and nausea in quick succession.
Mick then reaches for his pint, finding it empty. It’s clear that Larry is drunk, and he immediately begins to vomit. Mick moves away from his son, fearing that Larry might spoil his good suit, and he opens the back door for Larry, telling the boy to go outside. Larry runs into a wall before vomiting again, while Mick “cautiously” holds him, still concerned about his suit.
Although Mick does show that he cares at least somewhat about Larry’s welfare here, he’s also more worried about his suit than his son, demonstrating that his preoccupation with looking good in front of others never leaves him—not even when his own son is experiencing physical distress.
When Larry is done vomiting, Mick brings him back inside. Someone looks at Larry with pity and says, “isn’t it the likes of them would be fathers.” The bartender tells Mick that he needs to take Larry home, and Mick moans about his “misfortune,” since he knows Mrs. Delaney will be mad. He “snarls” that women should “look after their children themselves.” Mick then threatens that he’ll never bring Larry out again, and he hands the boy a handkerchief for his eye. Larry is surprised to realize that he’s bleeding from running into the wall, and he howls in pain, which Mick dismisses.
Mick is completely unwilling to admit that he’s responsible for this situation. Instead, he pities himself and tries to shift the blame onto “women” as a whole, and onto Mrs. Delaney in particular, rather than conceding that what has happened is entirely his own fault. Again, he doesn’t seem particularly concerned about Larry’s injury; he’s not heartless, exactly, but he’s certainly highly self-centered—even to the extent of neglecting Larry somewhat.
Mick and Peter Crowley grab Larry’s arms to steady him as he walks home, assuring Larry that he’ll be okay soon. Larry reflects that these two men must not understand the effects of drinking, since he still can’t see or walk straight at all. What Larry can see, though, is all the women out on the road, “gap[ing] at the strange spectacle” of sober men dragging a drunk and bleeding boy home. In his shame, Mick is torn between wanting to get Larry home as fast as possible and wanting to stop to explain to the neighbors that this isn’t his fault. When Mick stops to talk to a group of women, Larry resents them for staring at him, and he begins to sing a song. Mick scolds Larry while smiling for the benefit of the neighbors, which makes Larry sing louder.
“The road” has become an arena of public humiliation for Mick. Fully aware of the need to save face at all times, he attempts to justify himself to the neighbors, and, again, to assert that the blame for what’s happening lies not with him but elsewhere. Ironically, his need to stop and put on a show for the neighbors means that he is neglecting his sick son for all to see. Meanwhile, the song Larry sings—“The Boys of Wexford”—is an Irish ballad with the lyric “’Twas the drink that brought us down,” which has obvious relevance for the plot of the story. It’s also noteworthy that the neighbors are out gaping at them and laughing at their misfortune, but nobody tries to help or even expresses sympathy. It’s clear that community here is fraught: it’s not nurturing or helpful, but judgmental and mean.
Mick says he’ll carry Larry home, and Larry swears at his father, asking to be left alone. The women on the road laugh hysterically, which infuriates Larry; he thinks that nobody can “have a drop” without the neighbors coming to “make game of him.” Larry calls the women “bitches,” and Mick furiously drags Larry away, snarling at his son and lamenting that this episode will be “all over the road.” Mick says, “never again,” and Larry isn’t sure if his father is swearing off drinking or Larry himself.
Larry is clearly mimicking Mick’s own drunken behavior here, swearing and threatening others. It’s a bad sign that Larry imitates his father, since the specter of Mick’s alcoholism being passed to his son is an undercurrent of the story. The ambiguity of the phrase “never again” is, of course, deliberate: O’Connor intentionally leaves it unclear as to whether Mick’s cycle of sobriety and binge drinking has been permanently disrupted, or whether, on the contrary, he has resolved never to let Larry embarrass him—and to stop him from drinking—again. It seems unlikely to be a commitment to stopping drinking, though, since Mick still hasn’t taken responsibility for the situation—it’s much more likely that he’s saying “never again” about Larry and implicitly blaming the boy for what has happened.
At home, Mick puts Larry to bed, but Larry can’t sleep and he gets sick again. Mick wipes Larry’s forehead, chops wood for the fire, and sets the table. When Mrs. Delaney gets home, she screams at Mick for what he’s done to Larry, but he shushes her, asking if she wants “the whole road” to hear her. Mrs. Delaney replies that the road already knows that he got his child drunk for his own amusement. Mick protests this misinterpretation of his “misfortune,” asking his wife “who the hell do you think I am?” She replies that everyone knows who he is now, “bringing up your child to be a drunken corner-boy like yourself.”
Mick, for all his faults, does have a more tender, fatherly side, which he demonstrates when undressing Larry and putting him to bed. But this display of tenderness is short-lived: Mick is sidetracked by thoughts of his damaged reputation. That Mrs. Delaney has already heard the neighbors’ distorted version of what happened shows how quickly gossip spreads in town (and how ungenerous the neighbors are, since they automatically assume the worst). Mrs. Delaney makes a harsh point when she says that the neighbors know who Mick is, even if they have the details of what happened wrong. What she means is that his humiliation and the damage to his reputation are deserved. Larry, the victim in the situation, does not seem to be at the forefront of either parent’s thoughts at this point, even though Mrs. Delaney is superficially more concerned about him than Mick.
Mrs. Delaney goes to check on Larry, but Mick appears in the doorway, criticizing his wife for speaking to him that way after “all [he] went through.” He insists that he should be pitied, since his day was ruined; he didn’t drink at all, and he was humiliated in front of the road.
If Mick showed a glimpse of his more caring side when putting Larry to bed, his natural self-centeredness takes over again here. It’s not Larry who’s worthy of pity, he thinks, but him—not least because his reputation has been unjustly tarnished.
The next day, Mick goes to work as usual, and Mrs. Delaney showers Larry with affection, letting him stay home from school until his cut eye heals. She calls him brave and insists that God kept Larry with his father, since Larry was Mick’s “guardian angel.”
Mrs. Delaney’s use of the word “guardian” here emphasizes that Larry and Mick really have swapped roles on some level, with the child intermittently playing a parental role (bringing Mick back home from the pub, etc.) and the parent playing that of the wayward, irresponsible child.