The Boarding House

The Boarding House

The narrative technique in this short story is an example of multiple point of view. It presented as third person narration. The narrator alternates between an omniscient point of view and the viewpoints of characters in the story, particularly Mrs Mooney’s and Mr Doran’s viewpoints. For example, in the following paragraphs the omniscient point of view is represented: “Mrs Mooney was a butcher’s daughter. She was a woman who was quite able to keep things to herself: a determined woman. She had married her father’s foreman and opened a butcher’s shop near Spring Gardens. But as soon as his father-in-law was dead Mr Mooney began to go to the devil. He drank, plundered the till, ran headlong into debt. It was no use making him take the pledge: he was presence of customers and by buying bad meat he ruined his business. One night he went to his wife with the cleaver and she had to sleep in a neighbour’s house.”;  “Mrs Mooney had first sent her daughter  to be a typist in a cornfactor’s office but, as a disreputable sheriff’s man used to come every other day to the office, asking to be allowed to say a word to his daughter, she had taken her daughter home again and set her to do housework. As Polly was very lively the intention was to give her the run of the young men. … Polly, of course, flirted with the young men but Mrs Mooney, was a shrewd judge, knew that the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant business.” From these paragraphs we can see characters’ background – they were not rich, good educated. Mrs Mooney was a clever and experienced woman, while her daughter was frivolous, all that she wanted was to get married.

The reader clearly sees Mrs Mooney’s viewpoint in the following paragraph: “She was sure she would win. To begin with she had all the weight of social opinion on her side: she was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour, and he had simply abused her hospitality.” Mrs Mooney was sure she would reach her intention, she had planned everything very carefully.

Mr Doran was nervous, he didn’t know what to do: “What could he do now but marry her or run away?” But the first thing he was thinking about was his job, his reputation: “But the family would look down on her. First of all there was her disreputable father and then her mother’s boarding house was beginning to get certain fame. He had a notion that he was being had. He could imagine his friends talking of the affair and laughing. She was a little vulgar; sometimes she said “I seen” and “If I had’ve known”.  Mr Doran tells us what had happened from his point of view: “He remembered well, with the curious patient celibate, the first casual caresses her dress, her breath, her fingers had given him. Then late one night as he was undressing for bed, she had tapped at his door timidly. She wanted to relight her candle at his for hers had been blown out by a gust. It was her bath night. She wore a loose open combing jacket of printed flannel. Her white instep shone in the opening of her furry slippers and the blood glowed warmly behind her perfumed skin…” Thus we can see that Polly tempted Mr Doran, it was a trap for him.

There are a few kinds of viewpoint involved in the story. For example, temporal, it is proved by using past tenses: “They used to go upstairs together on tiptoe”, “While he was sitting…”, “She stood up and surveyed herself in the pier-glass”. Social viewpoint is presented in the text as well. “He could imagine his friends talking of the affair and laughing”. Aristocracy is always interested in the other’s matters, they gossip a lot and discuss other people’s private life. “Some mothers would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money; she had known cases of it. But she would not do so. For her only one reparation could make up for the loss of her daughter’s honour: marriage.” – this quotation shows us both social and personal points of view.

James Joyce uses this type of narrative technique to show how reality is perceived in different ways by different people, thus the reader can see the situation from different sides and form his own vision of the situation described.

Since there are different points of view presented in the short story, the narrator stays more or less neutral, he doesn’t give his own estimation of events, thus letting reader form his own opinion about characters, their motives and situation as a whole.

I serve in police. Some time ago a dangerous murderess escaped. I was looking for her for so long. Finally I’ve found her. Now she is sitting in a room, right behind this closed door. She is dangerous, that’s why I have prepared my gun. She hasn’t expected to see me, that’s why she jumps up in fright. The cat, which has been sitting on the murderess’s lap, runs past me and out through the door. Suddenly I can see something blinking in her hand. That is knife. My basic instinct has worked out. I’ve pulled the trigger. I can see her eyes. They are full of surprise and fear. Her arm is bleeding. Now she’s helpless and she is going to be imprisoned.