Reading In The Dark By Deane Essay, Research Paper

In his novel, Reading In the Dark, Seamus Deane tells the story of an Irish

Catholic family in Northern Ireland between the late Forties and early

Seventies. He traces the path taken by a growing boy searching for and finding

the truth about his family during this very tumultuous time and having to come

to terms with what he discovers. Deane uses this family to illustrate the issues

surrounding history that are central to the deeper understanding of his novel.

He shows how the British government’s and the Catholic church’s differing

agendas affect these people’s history and the consequences of not dealing with

their history and past resulting in their subjugation and passivity. The theme

of haunting plays a major role in the history of this family and the overall

society of this people illustrating the problems of not confronting and not

knowing the past. The hauntings also further illustrate how various forms of

authority affect the way history is written and hidden. Deane begins the novel

with the haunting of the family’s home which starts to hint at the importance of

history and the failure to deal with it. "’There’s something between us. A

shadow. Don’t move,’" (Deane 3). This is the first reference to there being

something dark and sinister to this family. The "shadow" here is the

ghost that haunts the family, but in fact represents the true history of the

family that has not been exorcised. By calling it a shadow, this brings up dark

and ominous connotations about what has happened in their past. This shadow is

also between the mother and son, a clear indication that the existence of it

keeps them apart emotionally. The secret of their history builds walls between

the members which will destroy the relationships among their family. "’No,

nothing, nothing at all?All imagination?There’s nothing there," (Deane

4). The mother ignores the truth and fails to deal with it. She attempts to

ignore it by burying the past inside her. The truth about their history becomes

nothing more than a ghost in this family, festering inside those who know the

truth, but don’t tell it, which in the long run will destroy themselves and

others around them. The house itself is haunted which is used by Deane to

illustrate the strength and affect of how history and the failure to deal with

it affects the surroundings around a person, in this case the family. We had a

ghost, even in the middle of the afternoon?The house was all cobweb tremors.

No matter where I walked, it yielded before me and settled behind me. (Deane 5)

Deane reestablishes the secrets of the family by saying they had a ghost in the

afternoon. This only helps to strengthen that this is not the typical ghost and

haunting, which in the usual sense would take place at night. This is something

more, the history of the family that will not go away unless it is brought out.

This hidden history and truth is so strong that the house becomes a sort of

ghost and haunts the family as well. The house, which further represents

Northern Ireland, becomes the past and history that they refuse to deal with,

whichconstantly surrounds them. He describes the house as "cobweb

tremors" implying that the secrets of their history are old, since the

image of cobwebs creates the vision of something long and unattended to. It is

this truth about their past that has been unattended to or rather not dealt

with. The use of the word tremors describes that this secret still affects them,

though it is very old. This reveals Deane’s larger concern of how history and

not dealing with it can affect everything no matter if it is alive or inanimate.

These issues take on a life of their own, unpredictable and uncontrollable. In

"Eddie" Deane begins with the stories of what may have happened to the

narrator’s uncle, commenting on who writes history. "I wanted him to make

the story his own and cut in on their talk," (Deane 8). The story being

referred to is that of what happened to the narrator’s Uncle Eddie in the

distillery shoot out, something that still remains the hidden history of the

family. The father by making the story, or rather history his "own"

would begin to bring this out into the open, in effect beginning to exorcise

these ghosts in their past. Instead by refusing to "cut in on their

talk", he effectively allows an outside group to write his history, much

like the British government writing the history of the people. By not cutting

in, he illustrates the passive subjugation of the Irish people. The narrator, on

the other hand, illustrates the new generation wanting to face their past, where

by challenging the authority of the British government. This section shows how

their history is always present no matter what and how the outside authority

affects several generations of this country. A story of an exorcism then follows

the talk of Eddie in the section "Eddie" building on the theme of

hauntings and the ghosts that this family refuses to exorcise themselves. The

idea of an exorcism is to cleanse the body and surroundings of something evil

and harmful, to in effect clear the soul and free it. "But if the snib was

broken open, the devil would enter the body of the person like a light, and that

person would then be possessed and doomed forever," (Deane 9). This

exorcism on the other hand does the opposite, keeps the "evil"

suppressed and doesn’t get rid of it. Their true history is the

"devil" in their minds and discovering the truth is like a

"light" since now everything is clear and visible. The "snib"

is the seal between the secret and truth of the family’s history and the

comfortably numb feeling of not dealing with it. They feel they can only

continue living staying in a numb and unfeeling state of their past, which in

the long run will destroy family bonds. This is the mother and father’s belief

of the truth they know, that if they release this onto their children, they too

will be "possessed and doomed" with the knowledge that they, the

parents, have. What these characters don’t understand is that by keeping this

truth and history to themselves and not dealing with it, they are in fact

"possessed and doomed". This knowledge will haunt them for the rest of

their lives, doomed to relive this hurt for the rest of their life by

themselves. In the novel Deane has the narrator, his brother and father visit

the haunted "Field of the Disappeared", which begins to lead the

narrator down the path of the true history of the family and the pain from not

confronting it. "There was a belief that the souls of all those from the

area who had disappeared? collected three or four times a year" (Deane

53-54). The souls of this region represent the secret history that the family

refuses to deal with. Even though this history has "disappeared" it

still returns to haunt them, just as the "souls" do when they collect

together. No one, no matter how hard they try, can escape their past or history.

Or if you were in a house when the cries came, you were meant to close the doors

and windows to shut them out, in case that pain entered your house and destroyed

all in it?Again, I felt there was something more to be told, but his eyes were

saying he had changed his mind, he was not going to say any more. (Deane 54)

From this field, Deane reaffirms the secret truth of the family’s history, again

associating it with the haunting of a house, the family’s house. By using the

word "cries", Deane conjures up notions that the history of the family

is something dark and hurtful, since one associates crying with pain and

anguish. "Close" and "shut" refer to the attempts of the

father to keep from facing this past and bringing the history out into the open,

where by the healing can begin. Again, it is believed, by revealing the truth,

it will do countless damage to the family, but in fact by holding it in he

effectively builds a wall between him and his sons. The narrator continues to

"feel" there is something more to the family and he begins to slowly

associate what is haunting the family. In "Katie’s Story" at the end

of part one, Deane shows that the narrator is beginning to see there is more to

his family’s own history through her story of haunting and the force of the

outside authority of his parents. "An instinct woke in me at the mention of

Grianan. I wanted her to stop, not knowing why, but she went on" (Deane

68). Not only is Katie’s story about haunting, but also the narrator, he is

being haunted by "an instinct". There is something more that he begins

to realize about his family’s past and its connection to Grianan. This

"instinct" is the truth of their history that is beginning to come out

through the story. Also, the reference to Grianan illustrates the feelings of

the new generation of Irish Catholics that the narrator represents and their

remembering the past and the drive for self rule. The parents failure to deal

with this past of theirs is handed down to their children through their

authority over them. The narrator does not want to hear this history by his

reaction of "wanting her to stop". He doesn’t "know why",

but through the feelings of his parents, he wants to not deal with it, though,

just like his parents, he doesn’t understand yet the consequences of holding it

in. Katie, on the other hand, also does not understand the history of the

family, but she deals with it in her own way by telling this story. She forces

the narrator to begin dealing with this history when she goes "on"

with telling the story. Through this story of haunting, the affects of two

different authority figures becomes clear by how the narrator reacts to having

to begin dealing with their past and how difficult it can be. The authority of

the narrator’s father is used by Deane to show the colonialization of the Irish

people by the British government and the resultant effects of his trying to pass

this down to his son in order forget their history and past. You ask me no more

questions. Talk to me no more. Just stay out of my way and out of trouble. (Deane

110) Here, the father is representing the authority of the British government by

exerting the force he has over the narrator through the parent-child

relationship. "You" in this case is the narrator who symbolizes the

Irish people, particularly the new generation who will be involved in the

struggle. This is the same way the government acts with the Irish people,

forcing them to "ask no more questions" thereby effectively forgetting

their past. The total authority over these people again is represented by the

comment "just stay out of my way". This shows the military force the

British government has in order to force the Irish into submission. The father

also represents the Irish people and their failure to deal with their history

and past when he comments to the narrator to "ask no more questions".

"Questions" in this instance the history of the family that no one

wants to deal with, which the narrator is forcing. Deane uses the father’s

attempt to suppress the history of the family to illustrate the affects of the

British government on the Irish people. After the narrator confronts his father

about the family’s past, the result of the father’s suppression of the truth on

the family when they sit down to eat. "Everyone was sitting round the

table, silent," (Deane 110). "Everyone" represents the family,

but moreover the Irish people. The "table" that they are sitting

around is the country of Northern Ireland. These people live so close together

in this nation yet they have been indoctrinated by the outside force of the

British government to remain "silent". By remaining silent about their

past and history, he drives a wedge between the family, therefore illustrating

how the silence divides the people. Deane then uses Katie’s story to further

strengthen and comment on what an outside authority, in this case the British

government, has on another group, the Irish, in regards to making them forget

their history and the consequences of forgetting the past. "Every day they

would go to the field behind the house, where their parents were buried, and put

flowers on the grave and sit there for a long time" (Deane 64).

"They", in this case, represent the Irish people and the grave of

their parents embodies their history and past. The "flowers" that they

place on the grave represents the remembrance of this past and the reflection on

it. By visiting the grave "every day" and by "sitting there for a

long time" the children, or rather the Irish people are reflecting on,

dealing with and accepting their past. ?she wasn’t going to have them falling

ill by doing so in such conditions, no more than their parents would want her

to, or want them to insist on doing? She found the boy was now dark-haired, as

his sister had been, and the girl was fair-haired, as her brother had been.

(Dean 64-65) In this story of haunting, Deane uses the character of Brigid to

represent the British government. The children, whom again represent the Irish,

are being told how to deal with their history by this outside authority by

forcing them to not go to their parents grave. The "conditions" Deane

is commenting on, is that of Britain’s control of the of the Irish in Northern

Ireland. By not wanting the children to "fall ill", Britain does not

want the people to remember their past and history which would harm the control

they have over the Irish in this region. Resistance would spread like an

"illness" if the people remembered and dealt with their past. When the

children start to change and switch between each other as a result of not being

able to visit the grave, they effectively begin to forget their past. The more

they switch and change, their past history becomes more and more blurred as time

passes. The use of this story illustrates how an outside authority attempts to

manipulate a groups history for their own gains and what the consequences for

not dealing with and forgetting the history are for this dominated group. The

hauntings throughout Deane’s novel have a very distinct religious connotations

which illustrates the control and authority of the church in the lives of the

Irish Catholic people and how they affect the history of these people by making

them again passive and submissive. We live, boys in a world that will pass

away?Injustice, tyranny, freedom, national independence are realities that

will fade too, for they are not ultimate realities, and the only life worth

living is a life lived in the light of the ultimate. (Deane 26) Here, Deane

illustrates how the Church keeps the people submissive and ignorant. They try

and want the people to forget the circumstances they are living in and stay

focused on "the only life worth living" which is heaven. This is where

the family gets their belief that the ghost of their history and past will in

the words of the church, "will pass away" and "fade". The

church’s focus is to keep the peoples attention on heaven, to ignore the

"realities" such as "injustice, tyranny, freedom, national

independence". These are things that affect the people daily which, if they

remember their past, could cause upheaval in the area, therefore hurting the

churches power in Northern Ireland. Deane continues on, in

"Grandfather", with showing why the Church has a vested interest for

wanting the people to forget their situation and focus on something intangible,

which is their power in the region would be at stake if the people remembered

their history. I know there are some who believe that the poor man who committed

that murder was justified, and that he will be forgiven by an all merciful God

for what he did. That may be?But it is true, too, of the policeman: he may

have been as plagued by guilt as his own murderer? (Deane 26). "I"

represents the Church in this situation. They occupy the same intermediary

position here as they do in region, playing both sides of the field between the

Irish people and the British government. The "man" in this story

represents the Irish Catholic people in the struggle and the

"policeman", the British government. The church in this instance is

trying to negate the struggle and tension between the people and government by

saying both felt "justified". They must play both sides off if they

want to keep their position of power in the region. To side with one they run

the risk of alienating either the people or the government. That is why they

treat both sides of the "man" and "policeman" as the same

and not different. By the end of the novel, the narrator illustrates the new

generation of Irish Catholics who seek the truth about their history and in

effect become the living ghosts who now haunt the authority in the region.

"Why don’t you go away?" she asked me. "Then maybe I could look

after your father properly for once, without your eyes on me". (Deane 235)

The mother, who represents the old order of authority, now treats her own son as

the ghost that haunted them. Just as she wanted the shadow to "go

away" in the begin, she wishes the same of her son, who searched and

discovered the hidden secrets of their history. "His eyes" are those

of the new generation who dig up the past and make those who do not want to face

the truth. He becomes that constant reminder of their history, just as the

"shadow" was in the beginning. Here "your father" and her

being able to "look after" him illustrates the old order of authority

in Northern Ireland that he, the new generation of Irish, interrupt. It is this

new generation that are involved in the fighting for their freedom from the

authority of the British government and Church, which the mother, father and the

rest of their generation had been conditioned into passivity and ignorance by.

Deane takes the theme of haunting and weaves it into his novel in order to

reveal something much more complicated than merely the mystery of the history

one family refuses to deal with. The family and their ghost reveal the

intricacies of the Northern Irish society. These two things reveal the use of

history by several different authorities to colonize and subjugate this people,

by steering them away from the realities that truly affect them. The simple

truth of the what Deane illustrates is history and the past will not go away and

they will always be present.