Brooklyn: Part Four Summary & Analysis

Eilis continues to keep secrets about her life in Brooklyn. Even though she has experienced so much while living abroad, she can’t bring herself to tell her mother about important developments in her life. That she fails to say these things when she first comes home suggests that she won’t manage to ever tell her mother that she’s married, since doing so will only become harder and harder as time goes on.

The longer Eilis puts off telling her mother about Tony, the less likely it is that she will ever come clean about the fact that she’s married. Her mother, for her part, doesn’t seem to want to know anything about her life in Brooklyn, perhaps because she hopes Eilis will focus on her existence in Ireland and ultimately end up staying at home instead of returning to America.

Eilis’s mother’s obsession with writing these thank-you cards is interesting, since writing these notes is partly an act of emotional expression and partly an act of social posturing. After all, these cards are perhaps the only form in which she talks openly about her sadness, but her determination to write them also has to do with her desire to fulfill certain social expectations, wanting to look like a well-respected and polite person. Eilis, on the other hand, doesn’t want to write the notes because she doesn’t care as much about impressing her former community members, nor does she feel like thinking about Rose’s death.

As time passes in Enniscorthy, Eilis remains unable to tell her mother about Tony. This is why she thinks that maybe it would be a good thing if her mother found the letters she sent to Rose about him, since this would at least save her from having to tell her herself. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that her mother wants her to stay in Ireland, trying to keep her busy and focused on everyday life in Enniscorthy because she doesn’t want her to leave.

As Eilis’s mother manipulatively makes it harder for her to leave Ireland, readers begin to sense that Eilis might never go back to Brooklyn. After all, she is passive when it comes to making big decisions in her life. If, therefore, her mother makes it hard for her to leave, she might acquiesce to the circumstances, becoming used to life in Enniscorthy even though Tony is waiting for her in Brooklyn.

Eilis decides to put off her return trip to the United States because this is the easiest choice available to her, since she’s unwilling to be honest about her relationship with Tony and therefore can’t explain why she has to go home. Once again, she passively responds to her circumstances instead of making her own decision. At the same time, though, readers will perhaps get the sense that some part of her likes the idea of staying in Ireland, where everything is familiar. And if this is the case, then Eilis is once more slowly getting used to another way of life, this time reacclimating to the patterns of her childhood home. In turn, Tóibín illustrates yet again that people tend to become accustomed to their environments, though Eilis’s decision to postpone her return to America demonstrates that it’s important for people to be aware of their own ability to acclimate, since there should be a difference between actively adapting and passively acquiescing to new circumstances.

Given that Eilis is already a rather passive person, it doesn’t help that her mother is actively trying to get her to stay home by bribing her with Rose’s clothing and pretending not to hear her when she talks about returning to America. Indeed, the combination of her own acquiescence and her mother’s subtle manipulations makes it exceedingly unlikely that she’ll manage to rip herself away from Enniscorthy to resume her life in Brooklyn.

As Eilis goes out with her friends, it becomes more and more clear that she is acclimating to life in Enniscorthy. And though she most likely has negative feelings about Jim because he treated her rudely before she left for America, these reservations don’t seem to be quite enough to stop her from making plans for the following week—a sign that she has no intention of extricating herself from the group.

Slowly but surely, Eilis sinks into the everyday patterns of life in Enniscorthy. More importantly, she suddenly seems to have everything she wanted but couldn’t have before she left for America—an active social life and the chance to work in an office. The only thing holding her back from fully recommitting herself to a life in Ireland, it seems, is her marriage to Tony, and even this seems to have a fairly small impact on her, since she can’t quite recapture the feeling of immediacy that once surrounded their relationship.

As time slips by, Eilis starts comparing her life in Enniscorthy and her life in Brooklyn. Although she doesn’t necessarily allow herself to admit that she’s enjoying her current existence more than she enjoyed her time in Brooklyn, it’s obvious that she’s getting used to living in Enniscorthy again, as evidenced by the fact that she has forgotten to write to Tony. In turn, readers sense that she’s losing touch with her ties to America.

That Eilis goes in the water with Jim is significant because swimming has already been presented in the novel as an intimate, sexually charged activity. Consequently, her decision to “go along” with Jim as he gets in the water signals her willingness to test the boundaries of her loyalty to Tony even though she knows he would never do the same thing to her.

As Eilis relaxes into the idea of spending time with Jim, she feels a current of intimacy running between them. In the same way that she was acutely aware of Tony’s proximity to her when they first danced together, she now pays close attention to the ways in which Jim draws near her.

It’s worth remembering that nobody in Enniscorthy knows that Eilis is married. Having kept this a secret, then, she’s free to do whatever she wants, at least insofar as nobody will stop her. When she finally kisses Jim, readers see that she has been easing herself into this relationship, slowly getting used to the idea of being with Jim instead of Tony, though she has done nothing to end her relationship with Tony. Rather, she passively allows her bond with Jim to unfold.

Once again, Eilis responds to developments in her life with passivity. Instead of making it clear to Rose’s boss that she won’t be able to accept the job, she lets him think that she’ll consider it. And though she believes she’s tricking him into thinking this, in reality she’s the one tricking herself, since it’s obvious that she actually is entertaining the idea of staying in Enniscorthy.

Eilis discovers when she talks to Nancy that she now has a certain amount of social capital that she didn’t have before she went to the United States. This is because her community worships the mere idea of upward mobility and associates living in America with success. Of course, it’s true that Eilis has advanced somewhat by earning her bookkeeping certification, but she hasn’t yet worked in an office or done anything in the United States that she couldn’t do in Enniscorthy. Nonetheless, her townspeople admire her. Similarly, her mother speaks positively about Jim Farrell because he could further improve Eilis’s social standing.

The fact that Eilis tells Jim that they can decide upon a time to have tea after Nancy’s wedding illustrates just how unmotivated she is to return to Brooklyn. After all, she originally intended upon postponing her return trip until right after the wedding, but now she clearly plans to stay longer. Once again, then, readers see that she is passively becoming used to her life in Enniscorthy, indefinitely putting off her trip back to Brooklyn and working as hard as she can not to think about this decision.

Again, Eilis’s mother’s obsession with social status comes to the forefront of the novel, as she takes pleasure in the idea of her neighbors seeing her riding in a fancy car with Jim Farrell, who is now the town’s most eligible bachelor. Similarly, Eilis’s fantasy about marrying Jim in the same church in which Nancy marries George signifies her own interest in climbing the social latter in Enniscorthy. The longer she stays in Ireland, it seems, the more appealing this possibility becomes, even if following through with this fantasy would mean abandoning Tony.

Eilis’s refusal to tell Jim (or anyone else) about her marriage to Tony makes it easy for her to fall into a relationship with Jim, but so does the way everyone else celebrates the idea of them getting married. Although Eilis doesn’t particularly like what Nancy’s mother says because it makes her feel awkward, there’s no denying that the old woman is simply saying what’s on everyone’s mind—including Eilis’s.

Unlike Tony, who is open and sincere about his emotions, Jim is insecure, so he often misrepresents the way he feels. In this way, he is similar to Eilis, who also doesn’t like to show people how she really feels. When he asks her to marry him before she returns to Brooklyn, Eilis once again finds herself in a position in which a man worries that he’s going to lose her. And though this may seem possessive, it’s worth pointing out that Eilis’s passive nature does mean that she’s likely to accidentally abandon a lover, which is more or less what she has done to Tony. 

By kissing Jim, Eilis avoids having to talk about their future. Instead of telling him that she’s already married, she postpones the conversation, forever unwilling to speak frankly about the secrets she’s keeping.

Although Eilis decides to book a return trip, this doesn’t mean that she will actually do so. After all, she has been telling herself the same thing for her entire stay in Enniscorthy, constantly promising to buy return tickets but failing to do so when the time comes. Accordingly, it seems unlikely that she will actually follow through with this plan, regardless of her intentions.

Although Eilis has kept her personal life a secret since she’s returned to Enniscorthy, she now realizes that her privacy has been compromised. The implication, of course, is that Mrs. Kehoe told Miss Kelly that she’s already in a relationship with Tony. As a result, she will have to choose between Tony and Jim, forcing her to make an actual decision rather than simply resigning herself to the tides of life.

Eilis has spent the past several weeks dreading what her mother would say if she told her about her marriage to Tony, but now Mrs. Lacey’s response is quite understanding. Although she’s most likely disappointed, she tries to assure her daughter that she’s making the right decision by returning to Tony, perhaps sensing that what Eilis needs most is support.

When Mrs. Lacey tells Eilis that Tony must be a nice man if she decided to marry him, she tries to soothe her daughter while also emphasizing the importance of committing to her decisions. Because Eilis isn’t used to making choices for herself, though, she finds it hard to follow through with her decision to marry Tony. After all, the only reason she’s returning to Brooklyn is because she has once again found herself in a situation in which the choice has been more or less made for her, since staying in Enniscorthy would have actually been the more difficult option, considering that everyone will soon know that she’s married to Tony, making it impossible for her to continue her relationship with Jim.

Eilis’s unwillingness to face Jim aligns with her inability to show her emotions. Rather than confronting him and telling him that she’s married, she takes the easy way out by writing him a letter. And though she is effectively running away from their relationship, she clearly has trouble with the thought of actually moving on from their time together, which is why she decides to pack the pictures of them at the beach instead of ripping them up.

That the phrase, “She has gone back to Brooklyn” will hold more and more significance for Eilis as time passes suggests that she has come to appreciate the fact that her decision—regardless of how she made it—to go back to America will impact her entire life. In turn, Tóibín intimates that she has finally grasped that she can actively determine how her life progresses. In this sense, although this particular choice was forced upon her by Miss Kelly, it has helped her recognize her own agency.