A Mother

"A Mother" is a short story, not a book, by James Joyce that appears in his collection called "Dubliners". The story revolves around Mrs. Kearney, a socially ambitious mother who aims to give her daughter a career in music in an attempt to boost her family's social standing. However, her drive and reputation create conflicts, eventually leading to her own downfall. This story underlines the societal expectations, moral values and social justice of 20th-century Irish society.

• Children

								
Mr Holohan, assistant secretary of the Eire Abu Society, had been
walking up and down Dublin for nearly a month, with his hands and
pockets full of dirty pieces of paper, arranging about the series of
concerts. He had a game leg and for this his friends called him Hoppy
Holohan. He walked up and down constantly, stood by the hour at street
corners arguing the point and made notes; but in the end it was Mrs
Kearney who arranged everything.

Miss Devlin had become Mrs Kearney out of spite. She had been educated
in a high-class convent, where she had learned French and music. As she
was naturally pale and unbending in manner she made few friends at
school. When she came to the age of marriage she was sent out to many
houses where her playing and ivory manners were much admired. She sat
amid the chilly circle of her accomplishments, waiting for some suitor
to brave it and offer her a brilliant life. But the young men whom she
met were ordinary and she gave them no encouragement, trying to console
her romantic desires by eating a great deal of Turkish Delight in
secret. However, when she drew near the limit and her friends began to
loosen their tongues about her, she silenced them by marrying Mr
Kearney, who was a bootmaker on Ormond Quay.

He was much older than she. His conversation, which was serious, took
place at intervals in his great brown beard. After the first year of
married life, Mrs Kearney perceived that such a man would wear better
than a romantic person, but she never put her own romantic ideas away.
He was sober, thrifty and pious; he went to the altar every first
Friday, sometimes with her, oftener by himself. But she never weakened
in her religion and was a good wife to him. At some party in a strange
house when she lifted her eyebrow ever so slightly he stood up to take
his leave and, when his cough troubled him, she put the eider-down
quilt over his feet and made a strong rum punch. For his part, he was a
model father. By paying a small sum every week into a society, he
ensured for both his daughters a dowry of one hundred pounds each when
they came to the age of twenty-four. He sent the elder daughter,
Kathleen, to a good convent, where she learned French and music, and
afterward paid her fees at the Academy. Every year in the month of July
Mrs Kearney found occasion to say to some friend:

“My good man is packing us off to Skerries for a few weeks.”

If it was not Skerries it was Howth or Greystones.

When the Irish Revival began to be appreciable Mrs Kearney determined
to take advantage of her daughter’s name and brought an Irish teacher
to the house. Kathleen and her sister sent Irish picture postcards to
their friends and these friends sent back other Irish picture
postcards. On special Sundays, when Mr Kearney went with his family to
the pro-cathedral, a little crowd of people would assemble after mass
at the corner of Cathedral Street. They were all friends of the
Kearneys—musical friends or Nationalist friends; and, when they had
played every little counter of gossip, they shook hands with one
another all together, laughing at the crossing of so many hands, and
said good-bye to one another in Irish. Soon the name of Miss Kathleen
Kearney began to be heard often on people’s lips. People said that she
was very clever at music and a very nice girl and, moreover, that she
was a believer in the language movement. Mrs Kearney was well content
at this. Therefore she was not surprised when one day Mr Holohan came
to her and proposed that her daughter should be the accompanist at a
series of four grand concerts which his Society was going to give in
the Antient Concert Rooms. She brought him into the drawing-room, made
him sit down and brought out the decanter and the silver
biscuit-barrel. She entered heart and soul into the details of the
enterprise, advised and dissuaded; and finally a contract was drawn up
by which Kathleen was to receive eight guineas for her services as
accompanist at the four grand concerts.

As Mr Holohan was a novice in such delicate matters as the wording of
bills and the disposing of items for a programme, Mrs Kearney helped
him. She had tact. She knew what artistes should go into capitals and
what artistes should go into small type. She knew that the first
tenor would not like to come on after Mr Meade’s comic turn. To keep
the audience continually diverted she slipped the doubtful items in
between the old favourites. Mr Holohan called to see her every day to
have her advice on some point. She was invariably friendly and
advising—homely, in fact. She pushed the decanter towards him, saying:

“Now, help yourself, Mr Holohan!”

And while he was helping himself she said:

“Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid of it!”

Everything went on smoothly. Mrs Kearney bought some lovely blush-pink
charmeuse in Brown Thomas’s to let into the front of Kathleen’s dress.
It cost a pretty penny; but there are occasions when a little expense
is justifiable. She took a dozen of two-shilling tickets for the final
concert and sent them to those friends who could not be trusted to come
otherwise. She forgot nothing and, thanks to her, everything that was
to be done was done.

The concerts were to be on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
When Mrs Kearney arrived with her daughter at the Antient Concert Rooms
on Wednesday night she did not like the look of things. A few young
men, wearing bright blue badges in their coats, stood idle in the
vestibule; none of them wore evening dress. She passed by with her
daughter and a quick glance through the open door of the hall showed
her the cause of the stewards’ idleness. At first she wondered had she
mistaken the hour. No, it was twenty minutes to eight.

In the dressing-room behind the stage she was introduced to the
secretary of the Society, Mr Fitzpatrick. She smiled and shook his
hand. He was a little man, with a white vacant face. She noticed that
he wore his soft brown hat carelessly on the side of his head and that
his accent was flat. He held a programme in his hand and, while he was
talking to her, he chewed one end of it into a moist pulp. He seemed to
bear disappointments lightly. Mr Holohan came into the dressing-room
every few minutes with reports from the box-office. The artistes
talked among themselves nervously, glanced from time to time at the
mirror and rolled and unrolled their music. When it was nearly
half-past eight, the few people in the hall began to express their
desire to be entertained. Mr Fitzpatrick came in, smiled vacantly at
the room, and said:

“Well now, ladies and gentlemen. I suppose we’d better open the ball.”

Mrs Kearney rewarded his very flat final syllable with a quick stare of
contempt, and then said to her daughter encouragingly:

“Are you ready, dear?”

When she had an opportunity, she called Mr Holohan aside and asked him
to tell her what it meant. Mr Holohan did not know what it meant. He
said that the Committee had made a mistake in arranging for four

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